My Family's Keeper

by Brad Haddin

  For such a talented cricketer, Nathan had faced frustrations maintaining his place in the side, having been selected then left off the sheet for the first two Tests in the previous Ashes. But now everyone was in agreement about his contribution. It’s been said that the way I was able to stand up to the stumps for him in these Ashes helped people really recognise how good he was. If that’s the case, it’s something I’m very proud of, and not just because we’re such good mates. The wicketkeeper–spinner relationship is one of the most important in the team. The communication between the two of you needs to be spot on and the trust needs to be absolute: if he knows you’ll take all the half chances he offers, it gives him the confidence to try different things.

  The emotion out there on the WACA at the end of the fifth day when we got that final wicket, leaving England 150 runs behind, was immense. There were still two games to go in the series but we’d already done it! We’d won the Ashes back! No-one was ashamed to shed a tear when Nathan led us in ‘Under the Southern Cross I Stand’. (Nathan was song-leader for the Test team and I had the privilege of doing it for the ODI team.) Other than Michael Clarke, none of us had been part of a victorious Ashes side before. Everyone was riding a huge wave of joy and relief and camaraderie and pride. For me there was even more meaning because of what it had taken to be there after everything that had happened with Mia. The reason I had wanted to come back was because I’d believed the team had this win in them and that I could contribute to making it happen. We did, and I had.

  The celebrations continued in Melbourne. It was wonderful to have Karina, the children and my parents there for the Christmas luncheon attended by all the families. England, who batted first, looked like they might stutter back into life on the third day, but Nathan and I delivered a 40-run 10th-wicket partnership that changed the course of the game (my overall 65 came from 68 balls), and in the end we claimed victory without having to go past number four on the batting order in our second innings.

  Four down, one to go: the New Year’s Test in Sydney. I’d be walking out onto my home ground in my first Test appearance there since Mia’s diagnosis. I thought that in honour of the occasion it would be very special for Mia and Zac to come out for the singing of the national anthem. (Hugo was still too little.) Singing those words as a representative of your country is one of the most special things you can ever get to do. No matter how many times I’d sung it over the years, it never failed to touch my heart and that was never more true than on this occasion.

  I walked out holding Mia, but Zac, who fancies himself as a fast bowler, went out with Ryan Harris. Karina, Hugo, my parents, Chris and Jenna and my cousins Peter and Michelle were in the stands along with many friends. (Michael’s business commitments meant he was unable to make the trip from Dubai, where he’d been based for a few years.) Mum is even more affected by the national anthem than me — overcast day or not, she makes sure she has her sunnies on before the first note starts — but she certainly wasn’t the only one shedding a tear that day among those who knew how miraculous it was that Mia was there. (To the delight of the girl of the hour, a photo of her in my arms wearing her green and gold top and matching hat ran on the front page of the newspaper the following day.)

  There were strong rumours even before the game that I was going to announce my retirement, and some people saw the fact that I had the kids on the field as confirmation. The chatter had gathered so much steam by the start of the match that the journos demanded a definitive answer from Peter Lovitt, even after he assured them I’d had no such conversation with him. When they kept pushing, he said, ‘Look, there’s one bloke here who will know: Brad’s father. I’ll go ask him.’ He went and found Dad and put the question to him: ‘Is Bradley retiring?’ Dad said, ‘That one’s easily answered. Is Michael here?’ Peter knew immediately what that meant: there’s no way something so momentous would happen without the entire family present. He laughed and went away to hose everyone down.

  The game only lasted three days and everything about it was meaningful, starting with the fact that for the first time in Australia’s history the team remained unchanged throughout the five-Test series. We batted first and, not for the first time, got into trouble early on. When I came in to partner Steve Smith in the 28th over, we were 5 for 97. The crowd’s energy can affect a game, no question. Forty-five thousand people can make a hell of a noise and if they’re behind you it’s like getting a surge of adrenaline. When I walked out onto the SCG, the cheer was massive, and at every four and every big drive another huge roar went up. I really felt as though the whole of Australia was behind me and I played as well as I’ve ever played that day. By the time I was out, caught for 75, Steve and I had added 128 at a run rate of 4.68, including 20 boundaries in 20 overs.

  England wilted in front of our eyes after that. Only Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad had any fight left in them, and that wasn’t enough. When Boyd Rankin got a thick outside edge off a Ryan Harris ball after tea on the third day and Michael Clarke caught him for a duck to finish the game, the feeling was unbelievable. Not only had we won the Ashes, we’d done it in a 5–0 clean sweep, something Australia had achieved only twice before, first in 1920–21 and not again until the legendary team led by Ricky Ponting in 2006–07. Now we were in that hallowed company: we were Ashes heroes to kids all around the country, just as champions like Ian Healy and Mark Taylor had been to me as a young player. No matter how long I live, I’ll never forget what it was like to stand in the middle of the SCG locked in a circle with those guys as we raised our voices to the sky singing our victory song.

  All the people closest to us came back to the change room afterwards. Dad was almost speechless, brimming over with emotion as he shook my hand; it’s one of the few times in my life I’ve seen him shed a tear. It was going around. Simon Woolford is a good friend who played more than 260 NRL games and captained the Canberra Raiders for six years. He understood exactly what had gone into that achievement and what it meant. He too had a tear in his eye when he hugged me.

  Going into the Ashes, there had been plenty of criticism of the advanced age of the side overall and in particular of my ability to do my job. The phrase ‘defying Father Time’ made its way into at least one story. Five games later, I’d accumulated 493 runs at an average of 61.62, more than any other wicketkeeper or number seven batsman had ever scored in an Ashes series; I’d scored a half-century or more in every first innings of the series, becoming the first to do so in an Ashes since Keith Stackpole in 1972; and at the Gabba I’d taken my 200th dismissal and become the second-fastest keeper to do so after Adam Gilchrist. As with other personal stats, I didn’t place any importance on these numbers myself, but they did provide objective proof that age was irrelevant as long as you could perform. No way was I going to retire yet: I still had too much cricket left in me. The World Cup was coming up in just over 12 months; I wanted to be part of claiming it for Australia.

  Over the next couple of weeks I played in three ODIs against England (we won them all), but, like a number of the Test players, I was rested from the remaining couple in preparation for our upcoming tour of South Africa. That meant I could be around as we got ready for a couple of very significant milestones with the children: Zac starting school and Mia, her immune system having built back up, starting preschool. With Darren Lehmann’s blessing, I flew out a day later than the rest of the team so I could see our little man walk proudly through the school gates. Karina sent me lots of photos of Mia’s big day later that week. (She’d been fitted with hearing aids and humoured us by wearing them even though she was convinced she didn’t need them.)

  In South Africa we played a three-Test series plus a couple of T20Is. I couldn’t reproduce the batting results I’d got in the Ashes, and Dale Steyn bowled me twice in the Second Test with a couple of crackers when he got the ball to reverse. There was some kind of kerfuffle in the media about him supposedly celebrating a bit too boisterously, but there was no problem about that at all between us on
the field — one more example of the gap between the perception and the reality.

  We claimed victory in the final Test in Cape Town in the last over of the fifth day. To win that match in the style we did gave the team as good a feeling as I have ever experienced in a change room. Ryan Harris, James Pattinson and Michael Clarke had all fought through significant injuries, pushing so hard and putting the team above themselves to get us that result. It was a wonderful feeling and clinched us the series 2–1. That was a fantastic achievement considering the Proteas were the number-one team in the world at that point and we were on their turf. It showed how far we had come and how tight our bonds had grown.

  Thing were going well enough with the kids that Karina and I decided she should come over for a week-long visit during the tour. I was pretty nervous about the possibility that something might go wrong with Mia when we were both out of the country. However, nothing did, and after everything that we had gone through, having those few days together meant a lot to both of us.

  I got home from South Africa in mid-April and didn’t have to leave again until August, so we were able to participate as a whole family in the Run2Cure Neuroblastoma fundraiser in June. All the money raised goes specifically to research into treating and preventing the disease. Karina had originally hoped she might be able to raise $10,000 for the cause, but in the end she tripled that to an amazing $30,000, with $220,000 being raised overall. It was a beautiful day, with thoughts of Katie Tarpey and the other children who hadn’t survived fuelling the determination of all involved to try to stop neuroblastoma in its tracks.

  In late August I was back in Africa, Zimbabwe this time, for a one-dayer tri-series with South Africa. We won two of the qualifying games and lost two, getting through to the final against the Proteas, where they were just too good for us, thanks in large part to Steyn.

  The following month we played Pakistan in both ODIs and Tests, with the matches again held in the UAE for security reasons. We won the ODI series 3–0, but the Tests got away from us in a pretty big way, as Pakistan used their spinners to excellent effect and we couldn’t change the momentum of the game. They beat us in the first Test by 221 runs, a record win for them over Australia. The record stood for less than two weeks, until they thrashed us by 356 runs in the Second Test. Unfortunately, I damaged my shoulder early on the second day of that game, diving for a short catch. All my weight went down onto my right shoulder and I felt something pop, bringing with it a ton of pain. I got back to my feet and felt a click. I thought I’d dislocated the shoulder but I didn’t realise I had also torn the deltoid muscle away from the bone, which was why I couldn’t lift my hand up to my face.

  The physio came out and took a look, but I said I’d stay there for a few balls to try to get the movement back. I had to admit to myself it wasn’t coming good, and reluctantly went off. David Warner kept in my place and when he came off at the break I thought he looked pretty cooked (all batsmen think wicketkeeping is easy until they have to do it). I was very conscious that we needed him fresh to open the batting later in the day so I chose to go back out, which probably wasn’t the smartest thing I could have done since it most likely exacerbated the injury. I stuck it out for as long as I could but eventually I had to come off again.

  Being in the UAE gave me the chance to catch up with Michael and Amy and spend time with my nieces. And since Karina and I would turn 37 while I was there, we’d decided she would bring Zac over for a short holiday while Mia and Hugo got some grandparent time. My injury put a bit of a crimp in the family time we had planned, but it was still so good to be together.

  CHAPTER 17

  PULLING UP STUMPS

  MY SHOULDER INJURY RESPONDED well to treatment, but I was sitting out our five-game ODI home series against South Africa to get it completely right for the upcoming Test series against India. Michael Clarke had struggled with injury himself in South Africa, including hamstring problems. When he reinjured his hammy in the subsequent tri-series against South Africa and Zimbabwe, it seemed certain he would miss at least the first of those Tests, in Brisbane on 4 December; Rod Marsh had told me to get ready to captain in his absence.

  By NSW’s fourth game of the Sheffield Shield season, I was fit to play again and was looking forward to getting in some match time against South Australia at the SCG. The game started on Tuesday, 25 November. The Blues line-up included Doug Bollinger, Mitchell Starc, Shane Watson, David Warner and Sean Abbott, who had made his ODI debut in the UAE against Pakistan the previous month. The morning’s play unfolded just like any other day.

  The Redbacks won the toss and went in to bat. Phillip Hughes, who had joined the team two years earlier, opened with Mark Cosgrove. We got Mark out, then Callum Ferguson after him, but Phil was in good form and had reached 63 when he attempted to hook a Sean Abbott ball. He was a fraction too quick through the shot and instinctively turned his head away. The ball came up and hit him on his helmet, or at least that’s how it looked. Pretty much every batsman who has played for any length of time has copped a ball like that. Sometimes it takes you a few moments to gather yourself and that’s what I thought Phil was doing as he stood unmoving. But a second or two later his eyes rolled back and he let out a groan, a noise the like of which I have never heard before or since. His whole body went limp and he fell face-first to the ground.

  I got to him first to check that he was okay, with other players close behind me. I’d seen Shivnarine Chanderpaul knocked out with a blow to the helmet in my Test debut then come round again, but Phil wasn’t coming round. We called out for urgent medical help. NSW team doctor John Orchard raced out and performed CPR. He continued this as Phil was taken off the ground by medi-cab and was assisted by intensive-care specialist Dr Tim Stanley, who happened to be in the stands watching the game and leapt over the fence to help. Phil was taken to hospital but unfortunately there was no possibility of saving him. In an absolute freak accident, the ball had hit just below the helmet, on the neck, causing the vertebral artery to split, leading to massive non-survivable bleeding on the brain. In the whole history of medicine, there had only ever been 100 previous cases. There was nothing special about that ball — tens of thousands like it are bowled around the world every year. It was something no-one would ever have believed possible.

  Phil should have turned 26 later that week, but he died after two days in an induced coma, during which time family and friends, including those of us who were at the game, got the chance to go to the hospital and say goodbye. People close to him were grieving, players were in shock; people throughout the nation and the cricketing world were distressed.

  Something changed forever as a result of that terrible accident. Generation after generation of Aussie kids had grown up loving cricket, playing it in the backyard, on the beach, down the side of Nan’s house. It represented fun and joy. No parent dropped their child off at a Saturday morning game thinking cricket might cost their life. But now that shadow crept in. On the day of Phillip’s death I took Zac to his regular cricket game. At the start of the season I had given the kids in his team a cap with my Test number, 400, on it. In a poignant gesture they had all altered the final zero to make it Phillip’s number, 408, and they held the caps close during a minute’s silence. Looking at their faces and those of their parents, I felt so sad to think that these families would never be able to recapture the carefree pleasure in the game I’d grown up with. Some of cricket’s sunny innocence had been lost forever.

  The First Test in the Border–Gavaskar Trophy series against the touring Indian side was supposed to start a week later in Brisbane but was postponed by five days (and moved to Adelaide) to allow for the funeral. No-one knew what would happen when the game did finally take place, whether players would even be able to take the field and, if they did, whether they’d be overcome during the game. Our coaches and the Cricket Australia staff did an extraordinary job of supporting us. Counselling was offered to anyone who might want it and the sports psychologists spent a lot
of time with players, but there was no pressure put on anyone to play that Test match; it was purely a personal decision. There was none of the usual strategising or planning. Darren Lehmann said it might be that some players couldn’t take the field and, if so, that would be okay. Once the game started, people might feel they couldn’t continue to play, and that would also be okay.

  For myself, I felt trying to resume the game was the thing that would help me the most. It was an incredibly emotional time for me but my main thoughts were with Phillip’s family and what they must be going through. Tributes had taken off through social media, particularly ‘put your bats out’, and we players honoured him by listing him as 13th man in that opening Test and having his Test cap number, 408, sewn under the coat of arms on our playing shirts.

  No-one was unable to take the field or continue to play but the psychological scars of what had happened remained. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a game where a player didn’t get hit by a ball at some point, somewhere on their body. But now, whenever it happened, time seemed to stand still for a moment. Everyone there felt a split second of dread, as awful memories and fears surged up then subsided. That lessened slightly as time went on, but it never completely went away — it was another way in which things had irrevocably changed.