Love, life, Baggy Green: Bolton reveals challenging journey

Former Australia opener Nicole Bolton has offered an incredible insight into the challenges she and her former partner Elyse Villani faced as they juggled their relationship with personal ambition in the national set-up.

Speaking on episode three of the first season of cricket.com.au's Stories After Stumps documentary podcast, 35-year-old Bolton opened up about not only her mental health journey but also the emotional difficulties of competing with Villani, who was her girlfriend through much of that period, for an opening spot in the all-conquering Aussie side.

Bolton's candidness offers a fascinating insight into a seldom-discussed – though not uncommon – dynamic in women's cricket, whereby some players juggle relationships with the very same people they are playing with or competing against. And for the current assistant coach with South Australia and Adelaide Strikers, it was at times simply too much. 

"I really struggled with competing against each other and being able to disassociate between Elyse as my partner and Elyse as the cricketer," she said. "I think at times I made it quite challenging for our relationship, and that was probably through my own sheer ambitions to want to play at the highest level.

"To me, it was quite simple: I wanted to be with Elyse, I loved Elyse and I needed to find ways where how I was feeling wasn't impacting our relationship.

"I'm at a point now where, Elyse has won a three-peat with Tasmania and I think that's a freaking unbelievable achievement. She's makes runs and I'm generally ecstatic for her, but back in those days – I'll be honest – you want her to fail, because you want to play, and that's f---ing shit because you don't want to feel like that for someone that you're supposed to love.

"I look back on it now and, you know, I'm 35, but at 25 everything feels just so raw and it feels so intense that you're not sure how to navigate it."

Bolton, who played 55 times for Australia between 2014-19, is regarded as among the finest players WA has produced, but the left-hander's 17-year journey in the game was an undulating one, from an early exit to Aussie Rules to a lengthy battle with depression that she continues to deal with.

After scoring a hundred on ODI debut, she proved herself a consistent performer in the 50-over format while also dealing with the aforementioned challenges, which her then teammate and now Australia skipper Alyssa Healy witness first-hand.

"It was almost hard to watch it all unfold," Healy said on Stories After Stumps. "I think I felt for the both of them (Bolton and Villani). I think … neither of them probably got the most out of themselves and their careers simply because that was always filtering away in the background … I definitely felt like 'Bolts' probably struggled and seemed to grapple with that a lot more, and probably let that affect her."

Listen to the full episode on Stories After Stumps here, or wherever you tune into your podcasts, and if you're enjoying this new documentary series from cricket.com.au, don't forget to rate, review and subscribe.