by Brad Haddin
A couple of the senior players heading down from Sydney were at the airport. I was proud but self-conscious as I travelled alongside them, wearing the Australian Cricket team polo. Picking up the official kitbag off the carousel at the airport in Hobart, I felt like people were looking at me, wondering, Who’s this kid with the dyed blond hair and the earring? What’s he up to? I headed for the hotel as I’d been told to do. The media manager called, introduced himself and said he needed me across the road in half an hour for an interview and photo. ‘Wear your media polo,’ he said. ‘Yep, no worries,’ I replied. How hard could it be? Then I opened the gear bag that had been put in my room and saw four polos, all with the team logo and all different. I eenie-meenie-miney-mo’d one and went downstairs to be interviewed in my capacity as Australia’s newest recruit, if only for one game. (Steve Bernard had explained this was a long-planned rest for Gilly. He didn’t have to spell out that it was also a pressure test for me.)
I’d definitely be wicketkeeping, but there was no certainty I’d get to bat. Sports commentators were saying I was unlikely to be placed above number seven on the sheet, and Australia hadn’t lost more than six wickets the entire tri-series (the West Indies was the third competitor). However the game went, I hoped to perform well, but my entire thinking focused on the team, not me as an individual. I was walking into arguably one of the best cricket teams ever to play. They did not expect to lose, and no matter what, I couldn’t let them down.
My nerves were high as I got on the team bus to go to Bellerive Oval. I didn’t feel any better when we reached the ground. I found excuses to dilly dally on the way into the change room to allow everyone else to get ahead so I didn’t accidentally claim anyone’s spot. Secretly I hoped we would lose the toss and have to field first — that way I wouldn’t have to sit around for a couple of hours getting even more nervous. My heart sank a bit when the coin fell our way, but it rose again when Steve Waugh decided to send Zimbabwe in to bat. There’s no better way to settle nerves, for me anyway, than getting out there amongst it.
And so on 30 January 2001, I made my One Day International (ODI) debut. Ian Healy was at the game in his role as a commentator for the Nine Network and he presented me with my one-day cap in a ritual introduced under Steve Waugh’s captaincy. The team formed a circle on the field and Heals said . . . Well, I can’t remember exactly what he said: I was so keyed up, it went by in a blur. I know he welcomed me to ‘the unique family’ of people who’ve played for their country, and I’m pretty sure he ended with, ‘You deserve this opportunity. Go out and fulfil your childhood dream.’ One by one the team filed past to shake my hand; then it was game on.
Zimbabwe came out strong. Opener Alistair Campbell took a little while to get going against the bowling of Glenn McGrath and Damien Fleming, but once he hit his stride he piled on runs without offering up any real chances. I didn’t get flustered; I just kept my eyes open, ready to make the most of any little slip. By the 23rd over, Campbell and Guy Whittall had reached 94 (an opening partnership record for Zimbabwe in one-dayers against Australia) when Whittall tapped the ball off to the side and started for a single. I saw my opening and instantly seized it, jumping out from behind my wicket, scooping up the ball, flicking my glove off and landing a direct hit on the stumps at the non-striker’s end. The team was very happy with that effort, although since run outs are not classed as personal dismissals I still had not yet officially claimed my first international scalp.
Andrew Symonds got Zimbabwe’s number three, Stuart Carlisle, with a very nice running catch at long-on, but we had no luck taking Campbell’s wicket until Warnie’s bowling spell. I had a real ‘wow’ moment, sitting in my crouch thinking, I’m about to keep to Shane Warne and I thanked my lucky stars for the experience I’d gained keeping up to the stumps for Stuart MacGill’s spin bowling. Finally, at the start of the 48th over, with Campbell on 124, a slider came off his bat past the outside edge. I had it, then I didn’t. Sweeping it back over towards the stumps, I fumbled, before regaining control and making the stumping. I knew it was good, but the fumble made it hard for the umpire to be sure, so he sent it upstairs. I stayed calm, although I did think, Jeez, I hope I haven’t fluffed one off Shane Warne; I’ll never hear the end of it. The wait seemed to go on forever, but finally the third umpire signalled ‘Out’. Yes! There was a brief celebration — everyone in the team understood what a moment like that represented for a young player — then we were back into it.
Zimbabwe finished on 279, exciting the statisticians because it was their highest total of the series, an ODI record at Hobart and a bigger score than Australia had ever bettered in a one-dayer at home. We made good ground against them, however, thanks to Andrew ‘Symo’ Symonds and Steve Waugh, and a dogged Mark Waugh (known as Junior because he is a few minutes younger than his twin), who was on 90 when I went out following Steve’s dismissal halfway through the 35th over. (I’d been listed to bat at number seven but, when it looked like we were going to win, Steve said, ‘Put your pads on and go out and have a hit.’) We needed 46 to win and we had 14 overs and six wickets in hand. I’d played alongside Mark in the Blues a fair bit by this point, and walking out to him I was keen to hear the advice he would have for me.
What he actually said, in classic Junior fashion, was, ‘Mate, make sure I get 100. Don’t get too many runs before I do.’ That immediately became my focus: Make sure Junior gets his ton. But, dammit, if I didn’t get a four early on and then another. I was nicely warmed up by my 11th ball in, a full toss from a leg-spinner called Brian Murphy. It was right there, begging to be popped straight to the stand, but my only thought was Don’t hit it for six, ’cos then he mightn’t get his numbers. I attempted to roll it, but it went straight up and I was out for 13. Walking back off, I was thinking, Well, we still look set to win the game and at least I didn’t get in Junior’s way. It all came back to the importance of knowing your place. The respect was real — those senior guys had earned it with what they’d done for the game. I hoped one day I’d be seen in a similar light, but that was a long way off.
Junior finished on 102 not out, and we won the game with six overs to spare. I caught up briefly with my family then went out for beers with some of my cricketing heroes — as a fellow member of the Australian team. How about that? It was a really great end to a memorable day (it would even be worth how bad I felt flying out in turbulence at 6 a.m. the next morning after too little sleep and too many celebratory drinks). Back home, the selectors let me know they were happy with the way I had played, and that was that. Their unstated but clearly understood message was, ‘Get your mind back on state cricket and continue to perform there so that if the opportunity comes again you’re ready.’
Before my international debut game I thought I knew what it was to want a place in the Australian side. Now I really knew and I was even more determined to do whatever it took to get that opportunity again. It was going to take a lot. The difference between what I’d been used to and what I’d just been part of was unmistakable. Everything about it — up to and including the banter that fielders used in an attempt to get into a batsman’s head — all of it had a completely different intensity.
Prior to that game I thought I was working hard, but now I could clearly see that the preparation I’d been doing was never going to earn me any more than a cameo in the Australian team. I had to work even harder. It was going to be tough, but now I knew the pay-off would be worth it. The feeling I’d had being part of the game at that level was addictive. I wanted more it, all of it — even the anxiety and that sick feeling in the stomach when you know how much is at stake and how much scrutiny you’re under. I talked it over with Steve Rixon and asked him to help me get to a whole other level. He was happy to oblige, coming up with extra training for me on top of what the rest of the team was doing.
The rest of the season’s MMC one-dayers didn’t all go our way, but we won more than we lost and in late February we went up against the Western Warriors in the
final at the WACA. They batted first and, led by some big hitting from Tom Moody and Mike Hussey, reached 272. Michael Clarke and I opened the batting for the Blues. Pup, as Michael is known, got 57, but I was caught for eight. Fortunately, Michael Bevan stayed the course and his quick 135 secured the win for us with 10 balls remaining. The Blues had won the domestic one-day championship for the first time in six years! We were thrilled and celebrated in true NSW fashion. At one point, batsman Graeme Rummans did a great re-enactment of the catch he’d dropped that he’d thought was going to cost us the final. It seemed a lot funnier after a few beers in the change rooms than it had several hours earlier.
I was having a fantastic summer already, but it got even better one night when I was out with the Northern Districts boys and Karina turned up. We started talking, catching up on what we’d each been doing over the past year or so. I enjoyed her company, but the guys I was out with were talking about moving on to another pub. I’d had enough of the night. I got up to go home and was halfway out the door when Karina caught me and asked if I’d come back and dance with her. She told me later she thought she’d better be bold and let me know she liked me, or we’d miss our chance. I wasn’t big on dancing, I’m more of a stand-at-thebar kind of guy, but I liked her too, so back I went. We danced and talked and talked some more and by the time she dropped me home we knew we wanted to see a lot more of each other. We’ve never been apart since.
At the beginning of March 2001, I was playing in a Shield game against the Queensland Bulls at the SCG. We were without Michael Slater and the Waugh brothers, who were touring India. The First Test, at Mumbai, had finished the day before. It was riveting stuff. India’s first innings were a pure battle of will between Sachin Tendulkar and Australia’s skipper, Steve Waugh, who deployed Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne to great effect before the Little Master fought back. The following day, Australia were in trouble at 5 for 99 before Adam Gilchrist came to the rescue. Like millions of other Aussies, I was looking forward to seeing what happened 10 days later in the Second Test, in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta).
Meanwhile, the Blues had stepped up under Stumper’s coaching. We were starting to develop our ability to maintain momentum as a team even when the senior players were away on international duty. We won the toss and went in to bat, feeling confident. Personally, I’ve had better days at the office, but fortunately my duck was not a problem, thanks to massive stands by Michael Bevan, Shane Lee and Mark Higgs. Queensland had no answer and were struggling by lunchtime on Day 3, when Trevor Hohns, the chairman of selectors, pulled me aside and asked for a word.
He told me that Gilly had pulled up okay from his big 122 in Mumbai, but had strained his hip at training. While everyone was fairly confident he would be right for the Second Test there was no back-up keeper on the tour and they wanted to rest him for the three-day Board President’s XI tour match starting the following day in Cochin. I had to get home and pack quick-smart: I was flying out that afternoon to serve as his stand-in. It was amazing news. The whole thing was head-spinning, including the TV cameras and journalists who were waiting for me when I arrived at Sydney airport.
In fact it all happened so fast I really didn’t have time to get myself worked up about the possibility that I might be making my Test debut. I reminded myself that I was there for the tour match and that was almost certainly all, so there was no point projecting beyond that. I touched down in India at midnight, local time, on 5 March, and the game was underway by 9.30 the following morning. With everything happening so fast, I didn’t have time to take in anything about India itself. It was all I could do to get my head in the game. Fortunately, we won the toss and Steve Waugh chose to bat, which gave me time to settle.
This time it was Tugga and Ricky ‘Punter’ Ponting who got centuries (Junior was stopped in his tracks at 62). I contributed a quick 24 to our total of 451. It was interesting to see the Indian bowling line-up in action, but my real education came when I got behind the wicket. I’d had a previous taste of subcontinental conditions on my Under-19s tour of Pakistan, but that was a long way from this level of the game. The conditions were unlike anything in Australia. Forget about the ball coming up to waist-height; it doesn’t bounce above knee level on that hard and dusty ground and you have to stand so much closer to the stumps. Then there’s the fact that, as the ball ages, it reverse-swings in an unexpected way. None of it was bad; it was simply very, very different from anything I knew — making it a great experience for me. On that wicket we were unlikely to bowl the opposition out, so we played for and got a draw.
I was asked to stay on until the Second Test was underway, to make certain Gilly was going to be fit to play. The squad travelled to Kolkata, getting there two days before the start of the game. The city is home to the Udayan Care centre, where children of leprosy patients are cared for and educated. Steve Waugh had already been a supporter of Udayan for a few years at that point, after having what he described as a life-changing encounter with Mother Teresa. Following training on the first day, he and Justin Langer were heading there for a visit and I asked if I could join them. It was an eye-opening experience. Even the bit I’d seen of Pakistan didn’t prepare me for the level of poverty I witnessed driving through the streets of Kolkata. The mothers with famished babies and the tiny children begging alone got to me the most. Because of the way cricketers are idolised and mobbed in India, we had high security, making us and our privileged existence even more visible. I could understand why Steve had been moved to do what he could to help. Feeling way out of my depth, I really admired his easy way with the Udayan kids. He was (and still is) a great ambassador for his country.
Gilly looked good in training and was cleared to play, which I’ll admit came as a huge relief to me. Of course, if I’d been asked to go out there in his place, I would have gone willingly and given it my very best. But ‘baptism of fire’ would be an understatement for what that experience would have been like. Eden Gardens is the world’s second-largest cricket ground behind the MCG. It has an official capacity of 66,000, but you often get crowds of nearly 100,000 crammed into that cauldron. Nothing I’d seen on television or heard from people who’d been there prepared me for what the noise was like when you were there. On the sideline, running drinks, I couldn’t hear the words of someone standing six inches away from me. As Indian cricket writer Anand Vasu has put it, it’s more like being at a bullring than a cricket ground.
That kind of atmosphere is just one of the reasons why visiting Australian teams often have trouble vanquishing India in Test cricket. The likelihood of getting ‘Delhi belly’ was another for many years, and even in 2001 you still couldn’t just grab a sandwich or a piece of fruit in the lunch break without wondering how it had been prepared. Also, the humidity is a killer, even for Aussies used to heat, and having a crowd of thousands of people outside your hotel and everywhere else you go feels pretty strange. And then there are those unfamiliar wickets. All these factors add up, which is why Tugga called India ‘the final frontier’ for the Australian team.
So, much as I dreamed of making my debut in the Baggy Green, I didn’t mind at all sitting this one out. I felt incredibly grateful just to be there, with a sideline view of what turned out to be one of the most remarkable Test matches of all time. With India forced to follow on after producing just 171 in answer to Australia’s first innings total of 445 (110 of those runs from Tugga; his first Test century in India), they looked set to go down in under three days as they had in the First Test. But then VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid delivered one of the greatest batting partnerships of all time, adding 376 before Laxman finally fell to a Glenn McGrath delivery on 281 and Dravid was run out five overs later on 180. Going into the final day, Australia needed 384 to win, but Harbhajan Singh was unbeatable on the fifth-day wicket, claiming six scalps to give India the Test. The atmosphere really was indescribable. The passion that the Indian crowds have for cricket is impossible to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it for themselves.
I was home in time for the NSW vs Queensland Sheffield Shield match at the Gabba, but the Bulls were too good for us, winning by nine wickets and knocking us out of the comp. We finished the season third on the ladder. It was a significant improvement on our bottom place in the previous season, when we’d only managed to win a single game. We still had quite a way to go, but we were on the right path.
CHAPTER 10
DOING THE BLUES PROUD
BY THE EARLY PART of 2001, numerous sports commentators were routinely referring to me as the most likely successor to Adam Gilchrist whenever he eventually retired. Respecting Gilly and the Baggy Green as I did, I never encouraged that kind of talk. But it did seem to fit with the positive message the national selectors had sent in picking me for the ODI against Zimbabwe and with the feedback Steve Rixon was giving me about the development in my game. All signs indicated I was progressing very nicely towards the aspiration I’d had since I was a little kid: playing for my country.
In May, the selectors announced the back-up keeper they were sending to England for that year’s three-month Ashes tour of England (plus a triangular one-day series with Pakistan). It wasn’t me; it was 28-year-old Wade Seccombe, an integral part of the Queensland team that had recently won the Sheffield Shield for the second year in a row. Stumper, who’d dealt with the uncertainty of not knowing if he was ever going to get to play a Test and then with long years of not knowing if he’d ever get to play another, was a great person to talk to about all of this. I also spoke to Dad, of course, who had excellent advice as usual: keep your head down and work harder than ever; don’t waste time worrying about things you can’t control (including selection panel decision-making); don’t think about players who are supposedly ahead of or behind you. Instead, put every bit of energy into being the best wicketkeeper you can possibly be, and be accountable for your own performances. So that’s what I did.