Underneath the Southern Cross

by Michael Hussey

  At our next one-on-one, he fixed me with those blank brown eyes and said, ‘okay Huss, do you think we’re training hard enough now?’

  ‘Yes, Rod,’ I said. ‘This is more like it.’

  He sat back. I fancied I saw him masking a bit of shock. He clearly hadn’t come across many kids who had a Ted Hussey training program behind them!

  After that settling-in period, I’ve got to say that it really was a great year. I absolutely loved it. I was with my peers, and even if they weren’t as good as the 1994 group they were considered the best players in the country. There was non-stop fitness, skills and specialist coaching. We also built a great team spirit by going out on weekends as a team.

  I learnt a lot from individual visiting coaches. Richard Chee Quee from New South Wales, the associate coach, was a great guy and very informative on what it was really like to play first-class cricket. He kept stressing that we enjoy the experience, if it came, and not to put too much pressure on ourselves.

  Cheeks had always been a very attacking batsman, which I didn’t think I could be. But it was great to get the encouragement. Ian Chappell came in for Bouncers Week, when the quicks were given the freedom to try to hit us in the head every ball. Ian came in and talked about getting into position to hook and pull – he was never about evasion, but rather putting pressure on the bowler. Against the spinners, Ian had us practising getting down the wicket and hitting over the top. When we had so much time and freedom, this was the space to practise being positive without the risk of failure. I was keen to learn as much as I could about this aggressive style. When you did it successfully a few times, you had confidence you could take your game to a new level.

  At the end of my year at the Academy, we had some games against state Second XIs and a tour to Pakistan. I liked Pakistan from the start. Compared with India, I found it cleaner and better organised. There wasn’t that mass of humanity. The hotels and food were great, the pitches were beautiful for batting and the other teams played good, positive cricket. It probably also helped that I was nearly two years older than when I’d gone to India, and had been living away from home for several months.

  We played six games against Pakistan A teams, all around the country, from Peshawar to Lahore and Rawalpindi. They were enterprising cricketers, with some fast bowlers including Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Zahid, and I recall their spinners being very hard to get away. The Salim Malik match-fixing scandal had broken earlier that year, but that seemed to be in a different world from what we were doing. I don’t even remember anyone discussing it. We were just out to enjoy our cricket and the experience of being on tour.

  I did like the food, but again made some kind of mistake – I don’t know what – and two minutes before I was to go out to bat in one of the matches, I was violently ill. I managed to bat for the first hour, but when the drinks came out and I was hurling up my guts on the outfield. I couldn’t drink. There was nothing else for it, so I decided to be the kind of cricketer Rod Marsh and Richard Chee Quee would like to see, and tried to hit every ball for six. For some reason, when you’re sick and you’ve given up, it seems to come off. It was a first for me. I belted seven or eight sixes and scored about 70. I felt terrible but had gained some respect from the team, for still wanting to play and score runs in the state I was in. And if I didn’t surprise a few people with my big hitting, I certainly surprised myself.

  With that experience under our belt, we came back and toured Australia to play the state Second XIs. Without a doubt the highlight of the summer, and the capping of a great year at the Academy, was a limited-overs match we played against the touring West Indies team at North Dalton Park, Wollongong. It was the first time I’d played a senior international team, and the first time I’d been to Wollongong. Even though it was nearly Christmas it was a wintry, windy day. We couldn’t believe we were playing the mighty West Indies, who we’d watched beat up on Australia all through our childhoods. We really couldn’t believe it when we bowled them out for 92. I guess the West Indians weren’t enjoying the weather very much and were less than fully motivated. But we were ecstatic as the wickets kept falling.

  The only problem was, as an opening batsman, the nagging question as it got closer to our turn. If the conditions were this hard for international batsmen against young bowlers, how hard were they going to be for young batsmen against international bowlers?

  When I walked out to open with Corey Richards, I was absolutely petrified. The whole West Indian team looked at me like they wanted to kill me. Their attack didn’t have Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, but as far as I was concerned, Ian Bishop, Anderson Cummins and ottis Gibson were terrifying enough. They all seemed very, very fast to me with Gibson the quickest. I somehow scratched out 23, Corey did much the same, and we got over the line. Rod allowed us to have a big celebration – a great way to finish off our time at the Academy. It was just lucky we weren’t chasing 250.

  My time in under-age cricket was coming to an end. When I think back to all the gifted players I knew, I ask myself why some talented youngsters come through and realise their potential, while others do not. Clinton Peake had much more natural talent than me. In that match against the West Indies, while I was in a life-and-death struggle, Clinton Perren came out and made it look like he had all the time in the world. He had a good first-class career, but as far as I was concerned, he was a better player than I was.

  I didn’t know the answer then, but I’ve got a better idea now that it’s all behind me. The higher you go in cricket, the more important is what’s going on between the ears. I think the essence of it is putting distractions aside to focus on the one important thing, which is that ball coming at you. The further up the ladder you go, the more intense the scrutiny, the more heavy the pressure, the more numerous the distractions. It’s very difficult to shut them all out. If it was easy, a lot more people would be doing it very well. Even the best players in the world can struggle with dealing with those distractions.

  Anyway, easier said than done. I probably knew this at the time. What I didn’t know was how to do it, and how to develop an ironclad mental routine that worked for me. To get that seasoning, I had to go up a level and test myself against the men.

  I was overjoyed when Ryan Campbell joined the state squad in 1995–96. Not only was he a terrific, attacking batsman, but he rocked up with the strut, the long hair and the earring, and all of a sudden the old boys had a new target. They laid into Cambo like you wouldn’t believe, brutally cutting him down, letting him know he wasn’t as good as he thought. After that, the attention went off me. Ryan and I stuck together against the older guys – it was kind of us-versus-them – and established a good friendship right from the start.

  That season, I played right through Western Australia’s Sheffield Shield campaign to the final. It was a great experience to be up against the stars of the sport, beginning with my first game, against a New South Wales team including Steve and Mark Waugh, Mark Taylor, Michael Slater, Michael Bevan, Greg Matthews and Glenn McGrath. I managed to score 42 and 81, which set me up well for the season. To be able to make runs against an attack of that quality, even on what was a flat batting track, gave me a lot of confidence and, I hoped, won my teammates’ respect.

  The Waugh brothers were renowned for a bit of chat on the field, but I don’t think they could be too bothered with me. I remember Mark taking the mickey a little, but more because I was an irritation than a threat. His attitude to me was that I was a pest, a tick in the backside.

  None of that was as weird as Greg Matthews, who often tried to get into the minds of young players. On the first morning, I was happy to have survived to lunch with Mark Lavender and was walking off, pretty chuffed. Then I heard this lewd murmuring behind me, ‘Great arse, Huss. Jeez, I wouldn’t mind seeing you in the showers, that’s a great arse.’

  I didn’t need to turn around to see who it was. I started running off. What the hell is this guy? When I got into the dressing room, I told some o
f the older guys and they burst out laughing. Typical Mo, or so it seemed.

  But it worked. Sure enough, in the first over after lunch I nicked McGrath and was walking off, still shaking my head in confusion. At the end of the day I showered pretty quickly, nervous that Matthews was going to come in and check me out.

  Every state had its own unique personality that usually permeated right down through to junior cricket. From under-17 and under-19 carnivals, I was familiar with the New South Wales way. They were super-confident, strutting around with fancy gear and fancy hair, blond tips, jewellery. They were pretty chirpy on the field also, trying to give you a sense that you didn’t belong on the same field as them. For a long while, I believed them! I struggled with that until a few years later when I understood I might be as good as these guys and they were putting it on as a front for insecurity. But it takes a while to learn that.

  In our return game against the Blues that season, I copped one of the biggest sprays I’ve ever received on a cricket field. It was a day-night Sheffield Shield match, and their Test stars were out, and I thought I might have had an easier time. Two mates, Corey Richards and Richard Chee Quee, were in their team. On the first day and night, I was at my annoying best, nicking it through slips and hanging around like a bad smell but doing a reasonable job because we were steadily losing wickets at the other end.

  They were all having a go at me, even David Freedman, the left-arm Chinaman spinner. Freddy wasn’t in the New South Wales mould at all. He was modest and polite to everyone. He bowled well to me, and I think my nicking and nudging even annoyed him. I thought, I must be really hated on this cricket field if even Freddy Freedman is having a go at me.

  Among the bowlers was Neil Maxwell, a tall all-rounder who would also play for Victoria. Maxi was known to suffer from a bit of white-line fever, a genial bloke who was a great competitor on the field. He had finished another unlucky over at me and was walking towards gully. As he took his cap from the umpire, he was muttering about how I was a young upstart and had no shots. Could I hit the ball in front of the wicket? He didn’t think so. Then he went on getting angrier and angrier.

  I was getting ready to face the next over, but Maxi’s spray was still going on from gully. I pulled back and asked the umpire to hold up the game. I turned towards gully.

  ‘Mate, have you finished?’

  That really set him off. ‘No, I haven’t finished!’ The spray went on for another thirty seconds or so, until finally the game could start again. It was quite funny, looking back, but at the time I felt intimidated. I’d learnt from earlier games how to suppress those feelings, though, and answered with a few runs, eventually making 105.

  (The postscript to that story is that Maxi is now my manager, friend and confidant. Like I say, he just suffered from white-line fever.)

  I was getting used to being sledged. The aim was to belittle me, make me feel like I didn’t belong.

  That hundred against New South Wales wasn’t my first for the state. In a match against the touring Pakistan team at the WACA before Christmas, I’d broken through.

  It was a great day, and a very flat pitch. Waqar Younis opened the bowling, but he wasn’t at full pace and he went off after a five-over spell. I actually nicked him early in my innings, but was given not out. Most of the bowling was done by their world-class spinners, Mushtaq Ahmed and Saqlain Mushtaq. Saqlain was renowned for having developed a mystery ball, a ‘doosra’, which looked like an off-spinner but turned away from the bat (or into the-left-hander, in my case). We’d never seen a doosra, and were talking a lot about whether it would spin, how to pick it and so on. Mushtaq, meanwhile, was renowned for his wrong’un. I was excited by the challenge of surviving against them. But to be honest, the odds were stacked in my favour. It was an ideal location for me to be taking on spin bowlers of that order, because there wasn’t a lot of turn in the pitch and the margin for error for slow bowlers was small. If they were just too full, I could drive through the line, and if they dropped a little bit too short I could get back and cut or pull. I didn’t see any doosras from Saqlain, and Mushtaq couldn’t get much purchase either way. Hoggy and I had a good partnership and we both made hundreds. Hoggy was playing freely, blazing and really enjoying himself, and I was beginning to feel that I belonged at this level.

  Mum and Dad were there, taking photos, which made them very proud, but it also led to an unforgettable confrontation with Justin Langer.

  Because I didn’t have many shots, I had to rotate the strike with quick singles. In the early stages of that innings, I kept pushing the ball into a gap and calling ‘Yes!’ Up the other end, Justin was repeatedly standing still and sending me back. I eventually went up to him and said, ‘JL, I don’t have many shots, so I need you to back up and help me get some singles.’

  He told me to look after my own game and not to worry about what he was doing. But later, I was looking through the photos that Mum and Dad had taken. In one, I was setting off for a quick single and there was JL standing in his crease, more or less sitting on his bat handle.

  Stupidly, I took the photo to him in the dressing room and said, ‘JL, here, look, this is what I’m talking about, I really need you to be backing up more.’

  That went down like a lead balloon. We’re good friends now, and we got to enjoy batting and playing together over the years, but at the time he let me know pretty bluntly that as a junior player, to criticise his running between the wickets wasn’t the right approach and I should have kept my mouth shut.

  That first season set a pattern for me. The key was making a good start. I came into each season with so many doubts and fears, I needed to make just one good score early to push them to the back of my mind. Once I’d done that, I could feel I had my teammates’ respect and could relax and play without the constant anxiety about being dropped.

  The downside, in that season and in several that followed, was that I put so much nervous and physical energy into preparing for the early games and making sure I got a good start, I ended up tailing off late in the season. As each summer wore on, I simply grew fatigued. That first season, I’d spent a year at the Academy, toured Pakistan, gone around Australia with the Academy team, and played seven first-class games for Western Australia before Australia Day. It was hectic for a twenty-year-old, and in the last five weeks of the season I only made one decent score, 85 against Victoria, among a string of failures.

  But we had developed a successful team and the selectors wanted to keep it stable. I was opening with Mark Lavender or Ryan Campbell, and in our group we had Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Tom Moody, Rob Baker, Simon Katich, Adam Gilchrist, Brad Hogg, Brendon Julian, Jo Angel, Sean Cary and Bruce Reid. We benefited greatly from having so many international-class players who weren’t able to break into the Test team. Jokes aside, Tom was a very good leader who commanded respect. We were playing an attractive brand of cricket. To be playing for Western Australia, contributing to the team, was my dream come true. It also meant a great deal to the state, and the senior players, to be succeeding again after a couple of years of indifferent results. We were all fanatical about winning the Sheffield Shield.

  The Shield final, against South Australia in Adelaide, was my first taste of five-day cricket and a great match to be part of. I only made 11 runs in more than an hour on the first morning. I had to survive the new ball from Jason Gillespie and Shane George, a frightening bowler. He was pretty quick, but what made him scary was that he was a bit wild on the field, with crazy eyes. He’d stand on the pitch after bowling and tell you he wanted to kill you, and spit somewhere in your direction. I was pretty scared of him. I thought that at any moment he might bowl a hand-to-header, a beamer – he’d be happier to hurt you than get you out. I did manage to survive that pair, but gave my wicket away to Greg Blewett’s medium pacers.

  When you’re young, you often don’t appreciate how special some things are, but I’ll never forget Gilly’s 189 off 187 balls on the second day. It was simply phenomenal.
Tim May was bowling, a Test spinner on his home ground, and Gilly kept slog-sweeping him into the stands, against the spin. I think it was the innings that made the national selectors sit up and take notice of him for the first time, and it gave our whole team the confidence to dictate terms, and the body language of the Redbacks changed. They were under pressure and behind in the match from then on.

  As we had come second on the regular season table, we not only had to play away from home but had to win the match to win the Shield. South Australia only needed a draw. When it came to the last day, we had to take eight wickets, but the pitch was well-worn and we were miles ahead on runs, so could set attacking fields.

  The Redbacks dug in. Greg Blewett had batted for more than five hours, and James Brayshaw lasted a session, but we had them seven down before tea. Jamie Siddons was in, but surely he couldn’t last long. He had damaged his hip so badly, he would need surgery. He could hardly walk, let alone bat.

  But tea came and went, and as the next hour dragged on, we just couldn’t remove him or Tim May. They didn’t bother with runs and just applied themselves to blocking. Brendon Julian, Brad Hogg, now bowling his Chinaman, and Tom Moody were bowling really well for us. We were positive, knowing that just one mistake would do it. Gilly was effervescent, saying, ‘Just one ball, keep going boys, the pressure’s on them.’

  With an hour to go, we broke through. BJ got one through May, who had scored 0 off 52 balls in more than an hour. Then, minutes later, Hoggy had Siddons caught close in. He had scored 4 runs off 134 balls in a tick under three hours – considering his condition, an amazing feat of application.

  But we were through, with nearly an hour to bowl at Peter McIntyre and Shane George, both ordinary batsmen. We thought we had it in the bag.

  Straight away, McIntyre pushed forward at Hoggy and punched the ball straight off his glove. Robbie Baker took the catch, diving halfway down the pitch, and we were celebrating. We’d won! Then we looked around. The batsmen weren’t moving. The umpire, Darrell Hair, was shaking his head.