Wife of love rat Aussie cricket coach lifts the lid on the ‘sex on tour culture’ of the game

The wife of a love rat Aussie cricket coach who caught him out cheating during his recent overseas tours has sensationally lifted the lid on the ‘sex on tour’ culture of international cricket.

Joanne Bell told Daily Mail Australia how uncovering her husband Trent Johnston’s infidelity while coaching Hong Kong made her ‘physically ill’, saying ‘it was traumatic, I felt so humiliated and betrayed, I actually vomited’.

And the successful property agent says her story is not isolated, with cricket stars often playing up on their unsuspecting partners while overseas.

Ms Bell said her husband, a former first class bowler turned international coach, had always held himself up as honorable –  until she uncovered racy texts on his laptop last month.

The laptop revealed he had sex with a woman while on tour in Zimbabwe, and took another woman up to his hotel room during the Asia Cup tournaments in Dubai. 

Ms Bell told Daily Mail Australia that international cricket was a seedy world of girls lining outside change rooms for sex –  and that players had derogatory names for them.

‘They’re called “chewers” or “chewies”, not sure why, maybe the chewie on your boot because they’re so low, or that they provide oral sex,’ Ms Bell said, describing her now estranged husband’s nickname for cricket ‘groupies’.

 ‘It’s accepted on tour that players have girls and I suppose Shane Warne is an example of an exceptional cricketer who has been found out despite the cover-ups and the unwritten rule that what happens on tour stays on tour.’

The late Warne would later write in his book, No Spin, about a sex scandal involving himself and two women when he was playing county cricket in England.

It was uncovered in 2018 when Warne revealed details of the infamous threesome, which also involved a blow-up sex toy and occurred after racy texts were exchanged.

Joanne Bell said such behaviour on tour was no secret among players or team members. 

‘Trent was pretty open about the fact that at the end of matches girls are coming into the change rooms, it’s just common place,’ she said.

‘In fact on on occasion there was a woman at the door to the change rooms and one of the players came and told (a famous former cricket international turned coach) there’s a chewer or chewie here for you.

‘And it was  (the coach’s) wife and he blew up and screamed, ‘don’t you ever call my wife a chewer again”.’

Ms Bell said it was commonplace for Johnston to tell her tales of players’ trysts.

‘He was constantly bagging people for it, on about how this stuff was rampant.

‘I now know they’d go out and hunt (for girls). Everything’s paid for, they just arrive in a country and swagger in.’

Her own discovery of her husband’s liaisons came halfway through their romantic reunion back in Australia, after spending four months apart, when he went to the pub and left her his laptop to watch a cricket match.

When the computer began to ping with Whatsapp messages, Joanne found that to her dismay Johnston had been having sex with a woman in Zimbabwe on the ICC T20 World tournament tour, exchanging nude photos with a woman on Bumble and having an ‘actress-model’ to his hotel room in Dubai.

Johnston and another coach – who cannot be named – hooked up with two actress-models ‘A’ and ‘LM’ who spent time in their rooms at the Dubai Hilton in September this year. 

‘He presented himself as a professional, has this mantra of honesty and integrity. But he’s got a sex addiction.

‘In Zimbabwe when he was called down from his room to sort out a players’ fight, he’s texting this woman who’s in his room.

‘After having sex with him, she’s there for two-and-a-half hours while he is sorting this coaching problem downstairs, in his room where his team analysis and game plan strategy is.’

At that point, Johnston texted the woman, saying ‘This could be a while young lady’ and when finally he has dealt with the players, he texted ‘I’m coming up now.’

Forty minutes later, the woman finally left the room, caught a taxi and then texted to say ‘I am home safe’ and ‘thank you for an unforgettable moment… I am glad I decided to come and show them to you’.

And then Johnston texted the woman saying, ‘wow, thank you for coming over and spending hours in a strange man’s hotel room … it gets this old bugga a little, sorry a lot excited … haha.’ 

It was Ms Bell’s understanding that team hotel rooms were located on secure floors.

Johnston had earlier warned the woman, ‘to get your way through security, up to level 1 and down the hallway past all the players rooms it’s too risky unfortunately’.

But they spent the next night together until he was called down to sort out the feuding players. 

Daily Mail Australia has contacted world cricket’s ruling body, the ICC, Cricket Hong Kong and the Asia Cricket Council asking what policies they have for team members having women in their hotel rooms while on tour.

 Ms Bell’s latest revelations come after she divulged the details of her hurtful break-up with her husband of 2.5 years in the wake of the Whatsapp message discoveries.

Since his arrival back in Australia, the couple had stayed in hotels in Bondi, the Sydney CBD and then in Byron Bay where, four days into Trent’s homecoming, he went out for a drink at a Byron pub.

While Johnston was still drinking a beer, Ms Bell had digested what she had uncovered on the laptop and made an instant decision, texting him, ‘We are done. Our marriage is over.’

Daily Mail Australia obtained the series of racy texts between Johnston and the two women in Dubai, as well as the Zimbabwean women he slept with during ICC T20 World tournament tour in Bulawayo.

The messages also include texts and topless nude photos sent to him by a woman via the dating app Bumble while he was in training camp in Britain between the tours. 

In the Bumble exchange, Johnston told the Bumble user she was ‘amazing in the shower’. 

Johnston, a Wollongong-born former Sheffield Shield cricketer and Ireland international was coach of the Hong Kong side when he exchanged the messages with the women.

He is meeting this week with Cricket Hong Kong for a review of his team’s tour and of the text messages and a report of alleged conduct Ms Bell has supplied to management.

The sometimes explicit texts he sent during pre-tournament training in Kent, and on tour in Africa and the Middle East are interspersed with his comments about coaching the team.   

Ms Bell had herself met Johnston via Bumble in 2018,  when the former NSW fast bowler and batsman bonded over an interest in sport with Joanne.

Ms Bell was a champion backstroker who trained at the Australian Institute of Sport and made the national team with swimmers like Lisa Curry, Suzi Baumer and Georgina Parkes.

Ms Bell had left behind swimming and  forged an international career buying and selling property for investors.

Johnston had not made it onto the Australian team, but went on to captain Ireland, and had returned to Australia in 2014 to coach the NSW Blues, but had left that job and was doing some consulting work with Melbourne Grammar School.

Within months, Johnston had moved into Ms Bell’s apartment and they married in late 2019 and Johnston  then became Hong Kong head coach. 

 The couple lived in Hong Kong, where Ms Bell continued operating her property business, farewelling her husband around June before his extended tour abroad and herself returning to Australia.

She said that while Johnston was away, he had been sometimes difficult to contact and had accused her of having ‘trust issues’. 

When Ms Bell found the text messages on his computer, she lined the dates up against her husband’s tour dates.

Johnston had been in Zimbabwe for the T20 qualifiers between July 11 and 17, in Britain in late July for a training camp, and then in Dubai in late August and early September. 

Adjusting the differences between Australian Eastern Standard Time and the UK, Zimbabwe and Dubai – which were at the time nine hours, eight hours and six hours respectively behind Sydney – Ms Bell found secret texts made by her husband to the women.

During flirty exchanges with the African woman ‘M’ he spent the night with in Zimbabwe, Johnston had texted, ‘I have an itch for you to scratch young lady’.

All the names of the women who had contact with Trent Johnston on his cricket tour have been omitted to protect their identities.  

While he was packing to leave Zimbabwe, she texted him to say, ‘should I come and join you for the shower’, adding a coy laughter emoji.

In another exchange he asked her ‘what do I wear to bed’ and she replied, ‘I don’t wear anything’, and adds a  playful ‘see no evil’ monkey emoji.

Trent replied, ‘Lucky sheets. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t’, M then texted ‘I promise I won’t’ and Trent replied, ‘I promise I will’.

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The teams playing in Zimbabwe at the World Cup Qualifier ‘B’ tournament were all vying for a spot to play in the A division of T20 in Australia which starts on October 16 and runs to mid-November. 

Johnston’s Hong Kong team won only one out of two qualifying games and didn’t advance to the semi-finals in a tournament which was ultimately won by Zimbabwe.

The woman ‘M’ Trent met in Zimbabwe had a rude awakening two months later when Joanne messaged her with a copy of one of the texts Trent had sent her after their ‘unforgettable’ night together.

M told Joanne that Trent had told her that ‘he was divorced and had been for a while’, adding ‘I am not a prostitute. I don’t want or have anything to do with your husband ma’am’.

Ms Bell persisted, asking ‘how many times did you have sex’ which M replied it had only been ‘once’; asked if Trent ‘wore a condom’, M said ‘Yes he did’.

After leaving Africa, Hong Kong’s international men’s side took part in a training camp  in Beckenham, England between July 18 and August 2.

The stay included two ‘friendly’ One Day International matches against the Kent Representative XI and the Kent Second XI teams on July 25 and 27, both of which Hong Kong lost.

Between July 22 and 24, a text exchange between a woman, ‘MJ’ and Johnston on Bumble included images sent to the cricketer of a woman’s naked breasts.

He responded by asking when he ‘can see those live’ and  said the photos have got his ‘blood flowing’.

When ‘MJ’ asked Johnston for a photo, he replied that he was ‘out coaching’ and that ‘the boys would be surprised if I started taking photos’.     

 

In August and September this year, Johnston and the Hong Kong side flew to Dubai for international cricket’s Asia Cup 2022, hosted by the United Arab Emirates.

Hong Kong had finished unbeaten in the Asia Cup qualifiers in Al Amerat, Oman between August 21 and 25, beating Singapore, Kuwait and the UAE.

These victories allowed the Hong Kong side to qualify for the Asia Cup and go into battle against cricket giants, Pakistan and India.

In Dubai, Johnston stayed at the Al Habtoor City hotel, one of 23 Hiltons in the city, which has six restaurants and four outdoor pools.

Two matches loomed, against India on September 1, and Pakistan on September 3.

The evening before the India match,  Johnston exchanged messages with a woman, ‘A’, who the texts indicate he spirited up to his room sometime after midnight.

Back in Australia, Joanne Bell had received a text from her husband saying he’d ‘had a really heavy day and was going to bed’.

Texts around 8.30 the next morning indicate ‘A’ shared a bed with Trent but that he had found it ‘disappointing things didn’t progress’.

When ‘A’ asked what was disappointing, Johnston replied, ‘I should not have to spell it out. We are both adults’.

He then added, ‘just say you are not interested and don’t use me as a bed’ and texts, ‘Listen enjoy your life in Dubai. I truly hope it goes well.’

But then at about 10am, he relented and texted, ‘I’ve just walked into the bathroom and I can smell you, you smell very nice’ and she replied, ‘Mhmm’.

When he asked, ‘you coming back for lunch?’, she replied, ‘I have invitation?’ and he responded at 4.35pm, ‘I’m still in bed and I won’t be moving from here’.

But ‘A’ then said she had work to do at her ‘detox and slimming’ salon and wouldn’t be coming for ‘lunch’ and suggested she had left ‘my underwear’ in Johnston’s room.

Johnston replied that there is ‘no underwear here’ and ‘no need to message again’.

Around the same time, another Dubai woman ‘LM’  texted Johnston saying that ‘A’ had forwarded his phone number and that she instead can join him for lunch.

LM had spent the evening with another cricket coach of a side competing in Dubai, but Johnston replied, ‘I don’t think so. I spent enough money last night for nothing’.

When LM said that A ‘told me you would love to have lunch in a beautiful company’ with a red-dress dancing woman emoji that signified a person is ‘ready to party’, he replied ‘Nice to meet you last night. Stay safe’.

LM responded with a red lipstick kiss image and asked, ‘tell me what you like’; Johnson responded, ‘I’m not paying for anything. I don’t know what you mean or where this is going’.

When she sent a heart hands emoji, he suggested she message the other cricket coach because she had chosen him the previous evening, then sent his last text at 9.21pm.

That evening, Johnston’s team played India in a night match at Dubai International Stadium and lost by 40 runs.

Two days later, on September 3, Hong Kong played against Pakistan, and again won the toss but elected to field rather than bowl, and registered its lowest score in T20 Internationals.

Pakistan smashed Trent Johnston’s side, with a record-breaking score to win by 155 runs, its largest margin.

Johnston flew back to Sydney the next day and was warmly greeted by Joanne Bell, but their intended five-day reunion ending on day four when he texted Joanne at 5.41pm and asked ‘what time do you want to eat babe?’

After Ms Bell locked out Johnston, he sent her texts proclaiming his innocence as far as being with other women went, saying about Dubai that ‘I had a few beers with those girls, yes they went back to (the other cricket coach’s) room.

‘I did not f***, kiss or do anything with that woman.’

On September 9, Joanne Bell obtained an interim Apprehended Violence Order against Trent Johnston from Tweed/Byron police, which is listed for mention in Byron Bay Local Court on October 17.

Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting that Trent Johnston has acted in a manner that warrants an AVO being taken out against him.

In a phone conversation with Daily Mail Australia, Johnston said he did not want to comment on his wife’s allegations and said  ‘I am going probably to be talking with my lawyers first’.

A subsequent letter received by Daily Mail Australia from his lawyer, Thos Hodgson, stated his client ‘shall not respond’.

Cricket Australia has responded to questions by Daily Mail Australia, saying it was ‘inappropriate to comment’ as Johnston wasn’t an employee, and Cricket NSW has said for similar reasons ‘we have no comment’.