Marcus Trescothick admits he is glad not to be in India with England's struggling squad for the one-day international and Test series.
The 32-year-old batsman, whose autobiography - a brutally honest account of his struggle with mental illness - was on Monday named the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, has not featured for England since 2006.
His troubles first came to light in India in February 2006 when he collapsed in tears in the team dressing room and subsequently returned home early.
The left-hander has attempted to make a couple of comebacks to the national fold since, and while they proved too much, Trescothick enjoyed a prolific season for Somerset this summer, amassing 1258 runs in 16 games.
"It's funny because my illness all started in India so I watch the guys on TV at the moment and, although I love playing for the country, I don't envy them being out there," Trescothick told PA Sport.
"It's a fantastic place to play cricket but it's hard work being out there."
"In terms of the cricket, India are playing at the top of their form at the moment so it's really hard work."
"The one-dayers are going to be hard now. England are 4-0 down with three to go and it's going to be very tough."
"The Tests might be different. We're going to have to play very well. But we'll have Steve Harmison coming back into the side probably and our Test form is probably a lot better than in the one-dayers, so fingers crossed."
Trescothick, who has scored almost 6000 Test runs for England since his debut in 2000, said his book was a vehicle for bringing everything out in the open and even helped his form for Somerset.
"It was definitely a very cathartic process writing this book," he said. "It's something that was in my mind for a couple of years to write about what's gone on."
"To write about it and get it all out in the open was great and to read it back was quite an amazing experience. It definitely helped me and this summer was really good. I played really well and I'm sure doing this book enabled that."
"There were a lot of things left uncovered for me throughout the two years of trying to deal with the illness."
"A lot of them were untold and there were lots of rumours so this was my opportunity to tell exactly the story that me and my wife went through."
"It was a great experience and after it was all done my cricket seemed to go really well."
He added: "This award is a reward for the hard work we've put in. It's a really special honour for me."