My Family's Keeper

by Brad Haddin

  It was our responsibility to bring the gear to training. We trained at Adelaide Oval, both in the indoor centre and on the Oval itself. I was blown away the first time we got to go out onto that beautiful, famous ground. But it didn’t take long to develop other feelings about it, thanks to regular punishments for misdemeanours such as forgetting to bring the cricket balls along with the rest of the gear. Rod would have us run around the pitch in the freezing rain for what felt like hours until he thought we’d learned our lesson. If we missed a training session without explanation or came seriously late, he took it to the next level, making us pile in a mini-bus so he could take us to the beach at Glenelg and send us out to swim wearing just our Speedos. If that doesn’t sound too bad, remember: this is winter in Adelaide we’re talking about.

  Rod had an almost spooky way of knowing exactly what we’d been up to. If some of the blokes got a bit carried away drinking at the Hindley Street clubs on a Saturday night, he would know the full story even before they woke up the next day. It didn’t occur to us, or to me anyway, that the vehicles we were allowed to drive around in were AIS-owned Taragos with distinctive number plates and that Adelaide was a pretty small place where Rod knew a ton of people. We thought we looked just like any other young guys out on the town, but we must have stuck out like the proverbial.

  Icy dips at Glenelg were one thing, but occasionally there was a really serious loss of privilege, just like we’d been warned. Some of the guys went up into the Adelaide Hills to play golf, had a few beers too many and caused some kind of ruckus that got back to Rod immediately. They were banned from going on the end-of-year tour to South Africa. That was a huge thing to miss out on. It really made us understand what was at stake. We couldn’t act like rowdy kids on a school camp — a big part of the preparation for becoming professional cricketers was behaving as if we already were.

  At the same time, Rod and his staff understood that life at the Academy was a major adjustment, particularly for the youngest members of the group, including me and Shannon Tubb, a Tasmanian bowler who was just 16. They knew that even though we were excited to be there, we did get homesick, and they organised for us to go home every couple of months for short visits. During these visits, especially early on in my time at the Academy, I would complain to Dad about how much they were pushing us and how hard it was. As always, he had a clear, calm perspective on it all. He reminded me that I’d made a commitment and needed to see it through, and that the course wasn’t meant to be easy; it was designed to weed out people who couldn’t hack life as an elite athlete. He also reminded me that if I turned out to be one of the people who couldn’t hack it, I would have to go and get a regular job. There was no pressure in it, just a whole lot of common sense, and I always got back on the plane more determined than ever not to let myself or anyone else down.

  I was true to that promise when it came to the learning and training part of the course, but not so much when it came to the job that went with it. Some of the older guys did their hours labouring on building sites where there wouldn’t have been much chance to slack off, but Shannon (who was, inevitably, nicknamed Tubby) and I were sent to Adelaide Oval for two four-hour shifts a week with the grounds staff. To earn the $2.50 an hour, or whatever nominal rate we were being paid, we were supposed to do whatever needed doing: mowing lawns, cutting back bushes, sweeping up or anything else that needed zero skills. But in a big place like that there are a lot of spots where you can be out of sight, and we found most of them.

  We were still getting used to the demands put on our bodies by the training regime. The Academy staff were absolutely flogging us and it was a quantum leap from anything either of us had ever experienced, even though, like me, Tubby was already playing first grade. It wasn’t unknown for us to do the first task we’d been given and then go and find an obscure place where we could catch some zzzs. One of these spots was a little mezzanine balcony that overlooked the nets in the indoor cricket centre. Standing up there you were visible to everyone, but lying down you were out of sight. Tubby and I were resting up there one day when we heard something that sent us into a frozen panic. It was the unmistakable voice of Rod Marsh, talking to a group of visiting dignitaries as he led them around.

  His voice got louder and louder as he approached the balcony, telling them all what a great program the Academy offered. Standing next to the bottom of the steps that led up to us, he said, ‘We put these boys through the mill. They work really hard, I’m telling you.’ Lying there, not moving a muscle, I kept thinking, That’s it, it’s all over. I’ve got about two seconds left and then he comes up and we’re done. I knew without a shadow of a doubt we’d get sent home if he found us. But, by some miracle, one of his tour group asked Rod a question about some other part of the centre and he turned away from the steps and led them off to show them the answer. Tubby and I got a lot more industrious after that close shave.

  In August 1996, we went to South Africa for three weeks to play two three-day games and two one-dayers against an equivalent team from their cricket academy. It was my first overseas trip and it felt pretty great to walk out onto grounds I’d seen so often on TV: Johannesburg’s Wanderers and Durban’s Kingsmead, the latter where Allan Border played his last Test. Rising stars Andy Bichel and Michael Kasprowicz joined the team to lend us some experience — they would both make their Test debuts for Australia a few months later. I’d learned a lot over the past months and I was able to put it all into practice, taking some choice catches and top-scoring in two games, with a 97 and a 75 not out. The momentum continued after we came back to Australia and embarked on a national tour, playing each state’s Second XI team and a couple of the Firsts as well. Beating the WA and Queensland First XIs made us feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Both trips also left me wanting more of the lifestyle: for an 18-year-old country boy, which is essentially what I was, living out of hotels and going to a different city every few days was pretty damned appealing.

  In December I got my first taste of the game at a true international level. It began in Canberra with my second appearance as the 12th man in the Prime Minister’s XI game. Once again the opposition was the West Indies and this time the line-up was even more awe-inspiring on both sides. Allan Border captained a team that included Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist and Stuart MacGill, and the Windies line-up, captained by Courtney Walsh, now included the legendary Brian Lara. I’d grown up watching the dominant, aggressive Calypso brand of cricket from the comfort of my couch or occasionally the stands, but this was my first daunting exposure to the real thing under pressure, in front of a big crowd.

  They always try to give the 12th man a bit of time in the field and towards the end of the West Indies’ innings I was sent out for a stint by the long-on fence. Walsh hit a sky ball like nothing I’d ever seen. It travelled seemingly miles up before descending at speed. In a fraction of a second my fantasies about blowing everyone away with an incredible catch were replaced by the urgent desire to protect my head. Positioning myself out of impact range meant I didn’t even get a hand on the ball, but I was almost too awed by the power and speed I’d just seen to be embarrassed. And Walsh wasn’t even a batsman! (Fortunately, my miss didn’t do any damage — we won by 58 runs.)

  Three days later I was back in Adelaide for the annual one-day match in which the Academy team took on the season’s international touring team when they passed through town. This year it happened to be Pakistan. It was the first match of the tour for them, a warm-up to facing Australia two days later, and they didn’t hold back. In the lead-up to the game there was a lot of talk in the media about one of their new fast bowlers, Mohammad Zahid. He’d made his Test debut a couple of weeks earlier and had drawn a lot of attention by taking 10 wickets.

  Pakistan won the toss and sent us in to bat. Michael Dighton and I had been chosen to open. He was only six months older than me but he had an air of authority about him (maybe helped by the fact that at 193 centimetres he looked down at me from a great hei
ght). Walking out with Dighta, I’d assumed that since he was listed first on the sheet he’d be on strike. However, he wanted a chance to see what he would be up against, and as we approached the wicket he said, ‘No, you’re facing.’ I wasn’t in a position to argue.

  As the bowler was getting himself ready, I thought, That doesn’t look like the bloke in the paper, and I took a quick look around the field. I spotted Zahid and figured, correctly, that he’d most likely be bowling the following over. The bowler I was facing was Shahid Nazir, another recent addition to the team but not in Zahid’s league. I got a single off him towards the end of the over and Dighta ended up facing Zahid. The first ball he sent down was quicker than anything I’d ever had to hit. We were playing with the big boys now. I was quite happy to reach 45 before I was nabbed by Saqlain Mushtaq, who was known at the time for what he called the ‘doosra’, a leg-break delivery bowled with an off-break action. But I was even happier that Dighta and I put on 103 before I got out, a very good contribution to our overall score of 248.

  The whole team was feeling pumped up when we took the field. Pakistan started reasonably well, but we stuck to our game plan and wickets started to fall. I contributed a couple of solid catches and a run out and we got them all out for 235. We’d beaten Pakistan and I’d been an integral part of the victory. Wow! The Academy’s tough love approach certainly produced results, at least for me.

  My time down in Adelaide had reached an end but the opportunities just kept coming. I was asked to captain both the ACT Colts (who were part of the NSW Country competition) and the overall NSW Country Colts (which played against a City Colts side that included players such as Brett Lee) for the 1996–97 season. As I’d still been 18 when the season started, I was eligible to play one more Under-19s National Championship. Once again I was made captain of the ACT team. By chance, that year the tournament was held in Canberra, which was special. I played well, scoring a century in our games against Tassie and WA, and 90 against South Australia, and finishing as one of the leading batsmen despite missing a game to play for the ACT (seniors) against NSW. In fact, I performed well enough not only to be named in the Australian Under-19s team for a second year, but to be made captain. Captaincy is always a great honour, but it was particularly special in this case because it was a first for an ACT player.

  The previous season Australia had been the home team; this time we would travel all the way to Pakistan for a month-long tour, taking in three Youth Tests and three Youth One-Dayers. The squad included several of us who had been at the Academy together, including Simon Katich, Brett Lee, Marcus North and Chris Davies. Before we left for the tour there were many briefing sessions about security and cultural sensitivities and the protocols that went along with representing your country. However, this was the pre-YouTube era and I was a fairly naïve 19-year-old: no amount of briefings prepared me for the confronting sights of life in a developing nation, even just through the windows of our coach from Karachi airport to the hotel.

  I also had no preparation for what happened during our first match, a three-day practice game that began on 3 March 1997. I went out for the toss with the Pakistan Under-19s captain, Ahmer Saeed. He won and decided to bat and we both headed back to our change rooms. When my guys were ready I said a few words, reminding them that the conditions might be different to anything we’d experienced before, but we were playing for Australia and we just needed to stick to our plan and play the kind of cricket we knew we were capable of. Then we went out to take the field . . . and so did Pakistan. Wait, what? I took a second to try to work out what I was seeing but I couldn’t come up with anything that made sense. I must have given Saeed a look of complete puzzlement, because he just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘We changed our minds.’ The umpire seemed unfazed by this, so there was nothing to do but say, ‘Ah, right. We’ll bat then.’ Something tells me we’re not in Queanbeyan anymore, Toto.

  We won that game by a very comfortable margin of 145 runs and I was pleased to have led by example, doing pretty well with the bat and taking 10 catches across their two innings. We continued to perform creditably and by the end of the month we had one Test win, one loss and a draw, as well as a one-day loss and a tie (the other one-dayer was called off before we even tossed the coin). We had travelled from Karachi on the Arabian Sea across to Quetta on the Afghan border and right up to Lahore. It was here, in the memorably named Gaddafi Stadium, that we played our final match — this was the down-to-the-wire tie — and I hit 117.

  I learned so much over the four weeks, both on and off the field. It was the first time I’d been exposed to those kinds of turning wickets, so different from anything we played on in Australia. And I started to create a mental catalogue of opposition players, including bowler Imran Tahir, who went on to play for South Africa; wicketkeeper-batsman Kamran Akmal; and batsman Hasan Raza, who had already made his Test debut for Pakistan the year before, aged just 15. I found that as captain I was able to set clear standards and expectations for the team so that we could have an enjoyable time while doing the job we were there to do. Part of the role was giving speeches at the formal dinners on the itinerary, including at the Australian High Commission. That was new to me and intimidating at first, but it was also a valuable part of my development.

  Every bit as important as all that match time and the associated experiences was the informal education I got off the field from Brian Taber, who managed the team, and Allan Border, who coached us. For an ambitious young keeper, Brian was someone to look up to, having filled the role for NSW and Australia. As a young man he had learned at the feet of revered keeper Bert Oldfield and he had played with Bill Lawry and Doug Walters. He’d managed the Under-19s the year before, too, when we’d toured New South Wales, but it was in Pakistan that I really got to hear his stories, along with those of bona fide legend AB.

  For all the obvious reasons, this wasn’t a tour where you could go out at the end of the day and sample the local nightlife. In fact, security concerns were so high that we were not permitted to make any forays at all on our own. We travelled as a group from whatever hotel we were staying in to the ground and back again, and that was pretty much it. But somehow Brian managed to have a slab of Foster’s waiting for us at the end of each day’s play. He would fill the bath in his room with ice and after dinner the whole squad would go up there and listen as he and AB told us stories from their careers. We young players would scatter ourselves around the room on whatever bit of furniture or floor we could find, and sit absolutely rapt, with the same drink in our hand for three hours, as they talked. We had plenty of questions and they were happy to answer them.

  Their stories about specific games and memorable innings were fascinating, but what really stayed with me was the passion they each showed when they spoke about the relationships they’d formed through cricket. They both had good yarns about their own memorable individual moments, but it was clear that those moments would have meant nothing without teammates to share the highs and lows. Playing for Australia was a huge honour for both of them, and the experience had been immeasurably heightened by sharing it. That resonated deeply with me. When I was young I enjoyed playing tennis and I liked doing well at it, but the reason I didn’t stick with it is because it was all about individual achievement. Apart from my family, sport was pretty much everything to me. But it was never about ribbons or trophies or getting my name in the paper. It was about that unique, profound feeling of shared effort and achievement that is the absolute heart of team sport — or should be, anyway.

  I’d boarded the plane to Pakistan keen to do well. By the time we returned I was not only more polished as a player, I’d deepened my understanding of what the Baggy Green truly means and I was determined to do everything I could to be worthy of it.

  CHAPTER 7

  WITHOUT FAMILY THERE’S NOTHING

  IF KARINA AND I thought that having Mia start chemo would put her on a steadier, more predictable medical path, we were wrong. Her condition contin
ued to fluctuate wildly, not just from morning to night but often within a few minutes. In addition to the chemo drugs themselves, she was on an incredible amount of medication, including three different antibiotics, something to steady her blood pressure, a laxative, an anti-nausea drug, another drug to try to prevent bleeding in the bladder caused by the chemo, a diuretic to prevent sodium buildup, an antihistamine and increasingly heavy-duty pain relief. (This began as paracetamol but was ramped up all the way to morphine and then, when she reacted badly to that, fentanyl.)

  Her blood was analysed several times a day and as soon as a problem showed up it was treated — if her potassium levels were low, she was given a dose of that; when she developed a thrush-like infection in her mouth, she was given anti-fungal medication to deal with it; when a rash sprang up on her back, anti-viral medication was added. (‘Itchy’ became one of her new words.) Combinations and doses were constantly being tweaked.

  Despite all of this, it was sometimes the simplest, most old-fashioned things that brought her the quickest relief. Mia’s temperature spiked into the fever zone (above 38°C) so often that when it didn’t do so from 7 o’clock one night all the way to 5 o’clock the next morning, Karina noted it in her diary with the comment, ‘That’s a record.’ When her temperature was up, giving her a sponge bath and changing her cot sheets for clean cool ones always eased her, at least for a little while, until the next fever spiked.

  Some of what she was experiencing was a direct result of the chemo drugs, some was a side-effect of the drugs given to counter the effects of the chemo drugs and some was a side-effect of the tumour breaking down and releasing its toxins into her bloodstream. Her stomach shrank a little then increased in size again, and with the mass pressing against her lungs she struggled to breathe. She was put on oxygen, but when her levels remained worryingly low the decision was made to intubate her (insert a tube down her windpipe under anaesthesia), although fortunately she picked up enough for it to be called off at the last minute. Her haemoglobin dropped again, as did her platelets, requiring transfusions of both. She spent a lot of time in PICU.