Underneath the Southern Cross

by Michael Hussey

  The other guy to score three figures in that innings was Shaun Marsh, the elder son of Geoff. Shaun had been around the Australian team as a kid, when Swampy was coach, and had been batting in the WACA nets with the state squad since he was sixteen. I remembered how rushed and uncomfortable I had felt at that age facing grown men on quick wickets, but Shaun had something extra. He wasn’t just surviving, but was playing good shots. He was a natural, and looked like he would be playing for Western Australia and possibly Australia for a good ten or fifteen years.

  Gilly, who was state captain, was mostly away playing for Australia so I led the Warriors in his absence. I enjoyed the experience and we were playing a good brand of cricket. Most of all, I was hell-bent on making more big scores. In a tour match against the Pakistanis, I got to 124 against a strong attack including Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami and Danish Kaneria, and then, when I was set up for a big one, in what I thought was a more prominent match against international bowlers, I threw it away. I was the most irate I’d ever been after getting out, and was throwing gear in the dressing room and screaming at myself. One of the young blokes said, ‘Why are you so mad? You’ve just made a hundred against Pakistan.’ I calmed down, but felt I’d missed an opportunity.

  Two games later, the chance arose against Victoria at the WACA. Shane Warne had retired from one-day cricket, so he was playing a rare Shield game. He had got me out quite a few times, and I wanted to prove I could convert a start into a big score against the best bowlers. I wanted to prove to him, personally, that I could play. I felt that if Warnie was talking about me positively around the place, that couldn’t do any harm. The Australian players obviously talked a lot about who was doing well in state cricket, and the selectors might ask Warnie how I’d batted against him. It felt like an important chance.

  I had a specific plan. It was well known that he didn’t like left-handers sweeping him. I’d been stumped off him a few times, so, rather than charging down the wicket when he tossed it up into the breeze, I stayed back and swept. He tried all his tricks: sledging, going around the wicket, over the wicket, wrong ’uns, flippers and more, and I felt I was reading him pretty well. I eventually got 223 not out, an enormous boost to my self-belief to make such a score against one of the greatest bowlers of all time.

  We only just missed the final, and I had my best Shield season for several years. I felt that my game was on track. I was taken on a tour to New Zealand for a one-day international tournament, and was beginning to feel comfortable in the Australian dressing room, for one-day cricket at least. Mates such as Andrew Symonds and Simon Katich were there, and the idea of Ricky Ponting being the captain was less intimidating, for me at least, than a much older guy such as Steve Waugh. I was still outside the periphery for Test selection, though. When they picked the touring squad to go to England to defend the Ashes, the Hayden-Langer combination was rock-solid at the top, and there was no space for me as an extra batsman. Although there were several people saying I deserved a chance, I was a little disappointed. To be on a touring Ashes squad was a lifelong dream, and the next one, of course, was four years away.

  We were going to be over in England anyway, for the one-day internationals before the Ashes tour proper, and for a season with Durham.

  During my two months at Gloucestershire, I’d taken a call from David Harker, the chief executive of Durham. They were the newest club, struggling for results in the Second Division, and he wanted me to come up and captain the club. They offered to fly Amy and me up for the day, and showed us around the club, a brilliant set-up with impressive facilities. They really wanted to go places. But did I have the energy to put into a struggling team?

  Gloucestershire had been indicating that they might want to resign me. I confided in Phil Weston, my opening partner. He said, ‘No, I definitely wouldn’t go to Durham, they’re really struggling.’ But the more I thought about it, the more I was excited by the challenge. When I was Northants’ captain, the cricket committee would ask me what I needed to improve, and I’d ask for this, that and the other. Financially, it was always tight at the club and the club often couldn’t afford ideas that I wanted to implement or bring in players I was keen to sign. At Durham, by contrast, the club said, ‘Whatever you need, we’ll get. No expense spared. We really want to go places.’

  So I went against Phil’s advice and signed as captain of Durham. Three present or future England internationals, Steve Harmison, Liam Plunkett and Paul Collingwood, were already playing there. Early in 2005 they had a preseason tour to Dubai, which I flew over for, to meet the team and support staff and see how it ran. When I saw them in practice games, I got excited about the young players they had, including the right-arm seamer Graham onions, and their Kolpak import, South Africa’s Dale Benkenstein, a good solid professional and a great person.

  When the county season started, we got off to a great start and things really clicked into place, which gave everyone at the club a lot of confidence and enjoyment. I scored freely away from home, making a double hundred on debut at Leicestershire and another hundred at old Trafford against Lancashire, but struggled at home on what was still a new pitch settling down. It was very tough for batting as the ball seamed around, and most of our home games were over inside three days. Harmison was beloved in the northeast, Plunkett and onions were very good on pitches conducive to seam bowling, and Mark Davies terrorised batsmen with his swing and cut. We steamrolled opponents. Collingwood was desperate to get into the England team, so we had him available and he was scoring big runs on that difficult pitch. Off the field, the club looked after our family very well and were always asking what more they could do for us. As players, we celebrated each other’s success. I brought in a team rule that if someone scored a century or took five wickets in an innings, we would all go to the bar at the clubhouse and have one drink to toast him. It didn’t have to be more than one drink, and a guy could have a soft drink if he liked; it was all about bringing new guys together and building team spirit. People thrived in that environment.

  I had two months with Durham getting used to the conditions before I joined the Australian squad for two one-day international series, first a triangular tournament with England and Bangladesh and then a three-match contest with England. There was plenty of time for the two teams to sort each other out before the Ashes.

  First was a Twenty20 game at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. As Australians, we were still struggling to take this format seriously. In our first Twenty20 international, a few months earlier in New Zealand, the Kiwis had grown 1970s-style facial hair and worn retro brown shirts, and everyone had gone by their nicknames on their backs. It was a less-than-serious, party-atmosphere game. But at the Rose Bowl, England came so hard, it was as if they wanted to kill us, to put down a marker to show it was going to be a tough summer ahead. They played like it was the first match of an Ashes series. Being bowled out for 79 and losing by 100 runs knocked the guys’ confidence a bit. We were well off the pace.

  Then we went to Cardiff and things got drastically worse. Andrew Symonds was suspended for being out late the night before the game against Bangladesh, which we ended up losing. Then Kevin Pietersen, the brash young South African starting a career for England, hammered us the next day at Bristol. It was an ordinary start. But the controversy and crisis galvanised the team. The senior players knew what they were doing, and lifted their work rate, pulling everyone together. Simmo, who was hurting badly, came back into the team and ended up being man of the tri-series.

  That triangular event boiled down to a final between us and England at Lord’s. We saw that as the moment where we could establish a psychological edge for the Ashes. It was one of those days at Lord’s where the clouds were so low you felt you could touch them. The ball moved around a lot, and we got ourselves into trouble, which you almost expect in those conditions. I was lucky enough to be batting well down the order, and nudged my way to 62 not out, getting us to a below-par score of 196, which still might be enough i
f we could take early wickets under a still-heavy sky. We did that, and had them 5/33, but Collingwood and Geraint Jones fought back much as we had when the shine went off the ball. They were targeting Hoggy, hitting him to the short boundary. It was very tight coming into the last ten overs, and then I got the look I most dreaded. Ricky was indicating that he wanted me to bowl. I thought, You’ve got to be kidding! But he was serious.

  I said to Gilly, ‘What should I bowl?’

  ‘Yorkers every ball,’ he said, no doubt thinking he was being helpful.

  Anyway, that’s what I tried. I would come to the end of an over and assume Ricky had seen enough. Every time the over at the other end came to a close, I turned my face to the crowd so Ricky might not be able to get my attention. But he kept calling me. In spite of my lack of practice, confidence and competence, it came out okay. I was landing the yorkers and not going for too many runs. We ran out Collingwood, Hoggy got Geraint Jones, and I managed to jag a wicket myself, bowling Simon Jones. I was pumped at getting a wicket at Lord’s, almost as much as I had been in making a half-century.

  The match ended in a dramatic tie. I didn’t know how to take it. We had done well after being 5/93 in the morning, but then we’d expected to win when we had them 5/33 in the afternoon. Sitting next to Ricky in the dressing room, I had no doubt how he felt. He was throwing his shoes around and carrying on. He saw it as a big loss of a chance to gain a psychological edge.

  We did win the three-match series with England, though, after Ricky and Gilly scored hundreds in the decisive games. Then Simmo, Hoggy, Shane Watson and I, the one-day players who weren’t in the Ashes squad, had to leave. It was odd to be part of the build-up and then having to go, and I left with mixed feelings. Obviously I would have loved to be part of the Ashes series. But I knew in advance where I stood, and felt happy with my own performances. I felt I’d cemented my place in the one-day team. And I had a passion for helping Durham have a successful season. Still, I was a little disappointed to leave the Australian team when I was playing with a lot of confidence.

  I had a hugely enjoyable and successful season with Durham. We had some groundbreaking moments, one was beating a Lancashire team including Andrew Flintoff, James Anderson and Muttiah Muralitharan, at old Trafford for the first time. We also beat Leicestershire for the first time ever away from home, and gained promotion from Division Two. I loved every minute of it – except when I was getting sledged over the Ashes results. Of course, I invited it, by making merry after Australia won the first Test, but ended up copping the brunt of it when England fought back and won the Ashes after sixteen years.

  Batting for Durham during the first day of the Frizzell County Championship game between Somerset and Durham in Taunton, England, on 26 July 2005. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

  There was some speculation about me being drafted into the Test team. The middle order was battling for runs, as was Matty Hayden at the top. No part of me, not even a tiny demon at the back of my mind, was cheering the Australians to fail. Hayden and Langer were unquestionably the best openers available. The guys down the order were the best players and should all be in the team. When some of them were battling, I just thought, If they’re battling, there’s no reason I wouldn’t be battling as well. I wanted Australia to win and I wanted the selectors to show faith in the guys they’d picked.

  By the fifth Test, Australia could still retain the Ashes by winning. There was enormous pressure on Matty Hayden and some agitation for me. I was thinking, No, I’m not the great white hope, I’m not Australia’s saviour, I’m just doing my best for Durham, I can’t win the Ashes. Actually, I was praying the selectors wouldn’t pick me. It felt like too much pressure. Happily, they stuck with Haydos and he made a hundred – as did JL – although it was not enough to save the Ashes.

  While that Test was still on, I flew to Pakistan for a short Australia A tour. It was good to be out of the country when England received the urn. I would have never have lived it down from the Durham boys.

  I had turned thirty during that English season and couldn’t dodge the suspicion that now that Hayden and Langer had reestablished themselves my time had gone. The New South Wales left-handed opener Phil Jaques went on that tour of Pakistan, and made good runs. Phil was an absolute run machine in first-class cricket. I felt that, when the time came to bring new blood into the Australian team, I might be overtaken by a younger generation.

  Pakistan was enjoyable, but their team was slightly better than ours. We competed well and won the odd match. I was in an introspective mood. Staying in the Lahore Inter-Continental, I was rooming with Stuart Clark. One night, we were lying on our beds watching TV. We were the same age, and while it was great to be touring for Australia A, it wasn’t Test cricket. Stuart asked if I thought I’d ever get to play for Australia. I said, ‘I’d love to, mate, but my time might have passed.’ We both went to sleep with those mixed feelings.

  The cricket was very high quality and drove home how much harder the next level would be, if I was ever lucky enough to make it. The bowlers were quick and good. I made a hundred in a first-class match against Pakistan A at Rawalpindi, but must have played and missed 150 times. Their bowlers were faster and better, and the cricket was more intense, than anything I’d encountered. If Test cricket was another level up, I wasn’t sure if I was good enough.

  While we were in Lahore, we were caught up in controversy. We had a team dinner in old Lahore, in a local restaurant beside a big mosque. The next day, we learnt that a bomb had gone off overnight very close to where we’d eaten. Some of the boys felt endangered. It wasn’t a big bomb and it wasn’t targeting us, but the team was split between those who wanted to go home and those who wanted to play on. Brad Haddin was captain and I was deputy, and he was going to head home anyway with an injured finger, so I had to help handle the question of whether to stay or leave. I met with the coach, Tim Nielsen, and the manager, who said that under no circumstances were we going home. It wouldn’t be good for Pakistan-Australia relations. I was fine with that personally, but communicated to them that some of the guys were not at all keen to stay. Shane Watson was notably nervous about the bombing, and others had been away from home for a long time after a winter in England. I said to the concerned players, ‘If you go home, it’s got to be for the right reasons, not because you don’t like Pakistan and are tired or homesick. But if you’re genuinely insecure and scared, you can go home.’

  After we requested and received assurances that our security would be stepped up, the team met as a group and agreed to stay on. It was good that we stayed. I think our cricket benefited from it. And as a captain, even if I was only a stand-in, I learnt a lot about the diplomacy needed in balancing out the wishes of every member of the team against the bigger picture of international cricket.

  Australia’s first international engagement after the Ashes was to host an ICC World XI in a one-day and Test series. It was great to be back in Australia. I felt I’d cemented my place in the one-day team. We had a big team meeting at Crown, where we were staying, led by Ricky, who inspired all of us. He was hurting big time. He said, ‘We’ve lost to England. What do we need to do to get better?’ His resolution was to try to get a little bit better each day, in every little thing, and maintain that intensity. I was ready to run through a brick wall for him. We trained extremely well. The Australian team wasn’t used to losing.

  Leaping into the arms of teammate Brett Lee after Australia defeated the International Cricket Council (ICC) World XI team, giving an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the three-match series on 7 October 2005. (Photo by William West/AFP/Getty Images)

  I was conscious that I was under scrutiny as a possible Test player. At thirty, I felt that I was down to my last chance. The other guy who was brought into the one-day team as a possible Test candidate was Shane Watson. With Watto, it took me some time to get to know the real bloke. My initial thoughts were uncertain. But they were only based on superficial impressions. It took time to get to kn
ow the real guy, and I found him to be a brilliant bloke with a very good sense of humour, passionate and thoughtful about his cricket. He loved his music and wine and the finer things in life, which put him outside the usual pigeonholing. Over time, the more I got to know him, the better I got on with him.

  The limited-overs games were the first to be played under the closed roof of the Telstra Dome in Melbourne. We won the first two, and in the third match I came in with some time up our sleeve. I was facing Murali, which was a bit scary. I’d done okay against him in county cricket, taking my time, warding him off, but before long I was having to score runs off him. I could pick which way the ball was spinning about 80 per cent of the time, and there were some balls I was missing by 6 inches. Far out, I thought, I’m sure I saw the ball spinning that way! Luckily I got through it and had a good partnership with Watto.

  Makhaya Ntini came on towards the end of the innings, bowling around the wicket. He put one right in the slot, and I don’t think I’ve hit a ball better in my life. It made a beautiful noise, right out of the meat of the bat. I thought, That’s six. I looked up and lost it in the lights. Then the ball dropped down – on the field. Their players were laughing, and the umpire was signalling dead ball. I couldn’t believe it. I’d got it right out of the middle, it was definitely going for six, and they were giving me no runs for it. I ranted and raved to Watto, and he was laughing his head off. We won the game comfortably, but I wasn’t happy about that ruling!

  I loved playing against the World XI, even though they evidently saw the series as a bit of a holiday. I thought all my Christmases had come at once, seeing all the best players in the world up close. Chris Gayle is a huge man, and Kumar Sangakkara batted well. To be on the same field as Jacques Kallis, Brian Lara, Murali, all the great players, gave me a big buzz, and I felt good to be able to cut it with them. We were playing so confidently and with such determination as a group, after Ricky’s inspiring speech at Crown, that no team, not even a World XI, could have come close to us in that series.