My Family's Keeper

by Brad Haddin

  I didn’t know about that; every day seemed to sear some horrible new image into my memory and I couldn’t imagine forgetting any of it. I also wasn’t quite sure whether taking photos was something we should be doing in a hospital. Karina told me that she had felt awkward about it the first few times, especially in Intensive Care, but she said, ‘No-one minds, honestly. In fact the nurses have started offering to take the photos for me.’ Fair enough. Anything that helped Karina cope, including taking photos and keeping a diary, was fine with me.

  Ten days had passed and, after initial speculation in the media about why I’d flown home, things had gone quiet — news of Mia’s diagnosis hadn’t leaked. It just showed the honourable nature of the people we encountered at the hospital and of our inner circle, who knew the basics. It also illustrated the tightness of the Australian Test team. On one of her brief breaks at home, Karina had ducked up to the local supermarket, where she bumped into Mark and Judi Taylor. Tubby, as he is affectionately known, is about as well connected as you can get in Australian cricket. Not only is he a former Test captain and a current Nine Network commentator, but he’s also a director on the board of Cricket Australia. His playing career was coming to an end just as mine was starting and we’d only played together in one game, for Northern Districts, so Karina hadn’t met him. But standing right next to Mark and Judi, she felt she ought to introduce herself. The first thing Tubby said was, ‘How is Brad? Is he okay?’ Karina said, ‘Yes, it’s actually not Brad who . . . It’s Mia, our daughter. She’s in hospital at Westmead. She’s got cancer.’ They expressed shock and sympathy and it was clear from the look on their faces that they hadn’t heard even a whisper about it.

  We didn’t want to start talking in public at length about what was going on, but now that we knew more and Mia had started treatment we figured we could give people a one-sentence update and leave it at that. Following his Test career, Michael Slater had found success in the media, including on Sky Sports Radio’s The Big Sports Breakfast program, to which I was also a regular contributor. I told Slats that it was okay for him to tell his listeners that Mia had cancer, which he did, sending us his best wishes. A sports columnist then texted me to see if I was okay with him running a small item and asked if there was anything else he could do. A few days later, on 1 April, the one-paragraph piece ran in one of the Sunday papers, and that was pretty much that. Karina and I have never been people to seek the spotlight or court publicity. We were already dealing with so much it would have been incredibly stressful to have to fend off the media as well (and I couldn’t imagine anything worse than inviting the world into your life at a time like this). So it was a huge relief when everyone took the high road.

  We kept visitors to the hospital to an absolute minimum — we couldn’t take any risks with Mia’s suppressed immune system — but those close to us sent us wonderful messages of support and thoughtful gifts and found ways to give us practical help. The people Karina had emailed on her first night in hospital got back to her sending love and kind thoughts. That included the mothers’ group she’d been part of for the three years since Zac was born. They all saw each other every week with the kids and were very close. Without having to be asked, these lovely ladies swung straight into action. They were all very familiar with our house and knew we had a chest freezer in the laundry, which was separate from the main house and accessible even when the house was locked. So they cooked up a storm and stocked the freezer with comforting, healthy meals for us and Zac that we could warm up at home or microwave at the hospital. (In fact, taking turns, they kept it topped up for the next 18 months, a mammoth and hugely appreciated effort.)

  Meanwhile the chemo got underway. The drugs were delivered straight into Mia’s central line. Each bag took around an hour and a half to empty, and while it was going on she had to try to not move around too much. A bit of visual distraction went a long way. Before she got sick she had just reached the age where she was starting to speak and now, as kids do, she was saying more words every day. The two best ways of keeping her entertained during chemo were the DVD and iPad — ‘DDD’ and ‘Hipad’ in Mia-speak. Karina’s sister, Danielle, was great at sourcing discs and loading up the iPad with Mia’s favourites, like In the Night Garden, Playschool, The Wiggles and Barbie, and keeping the selection updated so that there was always something new for her to discover.

  But it was hard for Mia to get into a comfortable position where she could see the screen. The hospital had those over-bed tables on wheels, the ones that have a top that can swing around, but they didn’t fit the cots. No sooner had Dad seen the problem than he came up with a solution. He measured the cot then and there and drew up a design for a wooden table that would slot onto its rails at just the right height. But he wasn’t about to solve the problem for Mia alone if he could also help other little ones. So he went home and got the joiner who does work for him to turn out half a dozen of them and then quietly donated them on his next visit to the hospital, making each day just slightly better for the children who had to be in there. It was a typically kind and practical gesture.

  Many friends, from cricket and other parts of our lives, sent flowers or food baskets or other gifts. We found it was especially touching when people included Zac, as many did; the ones who did this tended to be parents themselves. Most of the time we weren’t able to get back in touch with people to thank them individually because we were just too consumed with caring for Mia, but we truly appreciated every one of those gestures.

  I couldn’t let go of my worry about the baby who was on the way despite the fact that there had been clear scans all the way through the pregnancy. But even though Karina felt that the chances of anything being wrong were absolutely tiny, she was happy to get a referral and go for an ultrasound just to ease my mind. It came back all clear, to my relief. Whatever we could do to make things a little easier for each other we did. We had a battle on our hands now for Mia’s life, and the more distractions we could remove the harder we’d be able to fight.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE APPRENTICE

  UNTIL SOMETHING AS DRASTIC as a child with cancer changes all the rules, a lot of us think of life as a linear path — if you work hard enough you’ll progress from point A to point B. That’s certainly how I looked at things and it had been as far back as I can remember.

  Throughout my teenage years I felt like I was moving up a staircase towards my goal and by 1995, my final year of high school, I was more single-minded about cricket than ever. I did what I needed to get through Year 12 and pass all the subjects in my Higher School Certificate — despite having cheekily told my parents a year or two earlier that you didn’t need to be good in school to play for Australia.

  I’d copped the first of the injuries that are a constant of any wicketkeeper’s career: fracturing a thumb while playing in a CHS carnival. I didn’t realise it was actually broken for a week or so afterwards, despite it swelling up like a sausage. I was much more worried about the front tooth I had lost when a ball came off a pad at just the wrong angle. Dad would soldier on through most things himself and he expected us boys to do the same. When one of us got an injury on the sporting field he was a great one for saying, ‘Just ice it; it’ll be right,’ or, if it was a graze, ‘Put some zinc on it.’ But no amount of ice or zinc would fix my scary new smile. I was sure I was disfigured for life. (At the time, even though I knew an enormous amount about cricket, there were huge parts of life I had no clue even existed. Reconstructive dentistry was one of them.)

  Meanwhile I had really come into my own with the bat, scoring my first century for ANU right around the time of my 18th birthday, that October. (I would go on to get another and a 90 before the season was over, ending on an average of 48.6.) There were fantastic opportunities on every front. Both NSW and ACT had a Colts youth development side and I played in both; I captained the ACT team in the 1995 national Under-19s championship. I got the chance to captain ANU’s First XI, and acquitted myself well. I was then
selected as wicketkeeper-batsman for the Australian Under-19s team, which would cap off the season playing New Zealand at various ACT and NSW grounds throughout March 1996. Cricket even brought me into the Prime Minister’s orbit for the first time.

  The Prime Minister’s XI game is an annual Canberra tradition. It is an invitation match between an Australian team, which consists of established names plus up-and-coming players, and an overseas team here to tour for the summer — this time round, the West Indies. It’s customary that the captain of the ACT Under-19s gets to be 12th man, so there I was on the team sheet along with the likes of Dean Jones, Brad Hogg and local boy made good Michael ‘Bevo’ Bevan. The Windies side we would face included the famed (and feared) Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh.

  In the lead-up to the game there is a function for both teams at the prime ministerial residence, The Lodge. I knew Canberra like the back of my hand but the closest I’d come to The Lodge was driving past it on the way to a cricket ground. I was so young and green that even wearing a suit and tie was an unfamiliar experience. We were put up in a hotel the night before the game and taken on a team bus to the function. It was exciting and daunting to see so many great talents up close and nerve-racking to work out how I could talk to them without making an idiot of myself. And then there was the etiquette of meeting the PM, Paul Keating. Fortunately, we were given a protocol briefing on what to say when he shook our hand, how to mingle and what to do when it was time to go. It was a thrilling experience and my parents were filled with quiet pride. Unfortunately, the match itself had to be abandoned just after the toss without a ball being bowled, thanks to torrential rain, but even so it was a very memorable couple of days for a teenager.

  During my final two years of school I’d been considering what I’d do after graduation. Getting chosen for the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Cricket Academy was my number-one goal, but players often weren’t picked for it until they were in their early twenties and maybe had a few first-class games under their belt. So I needed other short-term options. I thought about following my father into carpentry or playing to my interests by doing an Education degree and becoming a PE teacher or doing a Sports Science degree and seeing where that led me.

  But I hadn’t inherited Dad’s aptitude for working with my hands and any uni study was going to be frequently interrupted by my sporting commitments. I figured the best thing I could do was give cricket a crack: get any kind of job that would pay the rent and focus all my energy on working my way up towards the state and hopefully national level. Not everyone shared my enthusiasm. My then girlfriend’s father told me flatly that playing cricket for a living was a totally unrealistic plan, that I’d never be able to keep a family that way and that the sooner I came to my senses the better. But my parents were totally supportive. The way they looked at it, I’d be doing the equivalent of completing an apprenticeship.

  When it comes to state cricket, it doesn’t matter where you were born; you can, of course, play for any state. The two territories, ACT and NT, don’t field teams in the Sheffield Shield, but all six states do and there’s a solid tradition of players moving interstate in the hope of increasing their chances of getting into a high-level team. That’s especially true of wicketkeepers, whose opportunities are so limited. Adam Gilchrist is a prime example. He grew up in New South Wales and played grade cricket in Sydney but was unable to break through into the state side thanks to Phil Emery’s lock on the keeper’s role, so he moved to Perth to play for Western Australia.

  Talent-spotters from other states had made approaches to me, but I wasn’t prepared to even consider the option of going elsewhere. I’d grown up idolising the NSW team, with players like the Waugh twins, Glenn McGrath, Bevo and so many other greats who showed just as much pride playing for the Blues as they did for Australia. I was intent on following in their footsteps. Playing first-class state-level cricket was already a pretty lofty ambition, but it wasn’t enough for me. My single-minded goal was to play for NSW and NSW alone, to be able to call the hallowed turf of the Sydney Cricket Ground home.

  So, with the blessing of my parents, my plan was to move to Sydney in the winter of 1996 and get myself set for the following season when I could start to work my way up. But then something even better came along: the coveted invitation to the Cricket Academy in Adelaide — not in four or five years’ time but now, as soon as the playing season was over. Of all the high-performing young players around the country, only a squad’s worth, 15, were chosen. It was very rare for a player who’d come up through the ACT system to win one of these places and almost as rare to be accepted at such a young age. I was on cloud nine.

  It was a 12-month scholarship that started when the cricket season finished and consisted of nine months’ intensive training and development, followed by three months travelling around playing. Everyone who went there was hoping they would ultimately end up playing for their country, but the Academy’s official role was as a kind of finishing school for potential state cricketers. You were provided with full board, supervision and a packed weekly schedule, which included a few hours’ compulsory work, arranged for you, to earn a bit of spending money.

  I was champing at the bit to get going, but before I departed I had some memorable firsts: my international Youth Test and Youth One-Day debuts as part of the Australian Under-19s team, which also included Nathan Bracken and Chris Rogers. We were to play three Tests and three one-day Youth Internationals against the New Zealand Under-19s. First up was a four-day Test. My parents and brothers would have travelled anywhere around the country to see this game but it just happened to be at Canberra’s Manuka Oval, a 15-minute drive from our place. The location meant that the whole extended family was able to come and watch, along with a bunch of my schoolmates and ANU teammates.

  In a Hollywood movie I would have had a heroic game. But life isn’t a movie. New Zealand won the toss and sent us in to bat. After an abysmal start, we were 5 for 173 by the time I walked out in the first innings, nervous but determined. Unfortunately, I only added six before being sent back to the pavilion. Things didn’t improve much over the next three days for me or the team, and New Zealand beat us by five wickets. It wasn’t the show I was hoping to put on for all those supporters, but I was too excited and proud to be representing Australia and too eager for the next match to worry about it. The initial one-dayer was played at Bowral at the historic Bradman Oval. We fielded first and while I did fine behind the wicket, I got bowled for a duck. (Would you believe it was my tribute to The Don’s final Test score? No, me neither.) By the end of New Zealand’s tour they had taken out the limited-overs series while we’d won the Youth Test series. It was great experience, and the perfect precursor to the start of my time at the Academy.

  When I got down to Adelaide I was pleased to see that Brett ‘Binga’ Lee had also been chosen. It was good to have at least a somewhat familiar face around the place, this being my first time living away from home. (Perth boy Simon Katich was another in the intake.) After we’d been shown around the facilities and found our spot in the dormitory, Rod Marsh welcomed us in his role as director of the Academy. He emphasised what a special opportunity we’d been given; he then told us he would be working us harder than we’d ever worked and he expected each one of us to give it everything we had. I thought, Yep, yep, bring it on!

  Bring it on they did. We were up early and we went hard all day. One day would consist of a weights or general fitness session in the morning and a skills session in the afternoon; the next day we might do a swimming session in the morning and work in the nets after lunch. We had lectures on nutrition. We were given media training with mock interviews. We learned about cricket history by having to do assignments on influential people or important Test series. Legends of the sport, including Dennis Lillee and Ian Chappell, came to talk to us and work on specialist skills.

  Ian Healy, whose poster I’d had on my bedroom wall, came down to do a week on wicketkeeping. I was in heaven. I tried to
take in his every movement and store images away to mentally replay later. I thought then — and still do — that he’s the best technician Australia has ever had behind the stumps. I was in awe of him and wanted my style to follow his as closely as possible. I was nervous even opening my mouth at first, but he was so friendly and focused and encouraging that I soon forgot about my nerves. I was drawn to his outstanding work ethic and his incredible attention to detail. He was a true role model.

  Even though Rod Marsh had been a wicketkeeper, I didn’t spend much time catching balls or looking at footwork with him one on one. Instead he provided us all with an invaluable education in the rich tradition of the game. He helped us see what the Australian way of playing cricket means and how the great players have left the game in a better place than they found it. He taught us to understand the importance of teamwork while still looking at what each player could do to move the game forward, and he instilled in us the importance of playing to win every single time. But I think the single biggest thing he drilled into us was discipline.

  He was a hard taskmaster, no doubt about it. He knew exactly how much was required of a first-class cricketer and he was going to use everything in his arsenal to force us to dig deep. No excuses, no half measures. He warned us in advance what would happen if we messed around or screwed up, and these weren’t empty threats. We were young blokes, many of us having our first experience of not being under the parental roof, and we pushed the boundaries a bit when it came to the weekends. But Rod made sure we didn’t get too out of hand on a Friday night by scheduling a full-on weights session every Saturday morning. We soon learned to find the tipping point between a good night out and one that just wasn’t worth the next day’s pain.