Underneath the Southern Cross

by Michael Hussey

  There were two weeks to kill while the T20 was still on, and we holed up in Leicester where the training facilities were outstanding. We had two weeks of nets and fielding and bonding sessions, and a couple of games of golf. It was good to relax. The Ashes tour proper started in Sussex, where we were given a task, as individuals, to make a presentation to the group about what the Ashes meant to each of us. It was a really good exercise, and got guys thinking about the history.

  Speaking of (recent) history, Gilly happened to be there, so he got us in a huddle and spoke about his Ashes experience. What came out above all was to keep your ‘eyes in’. That is, look after your mates, don’t worry about what the opposition are doing, don’t be distracted by everything on the periphery. He felt that in 2005 the team had lost that internal focus and care.

  I was one of the last to present. I wrote and delivered a light-hearted poem about the team, taking the mickey out of each of the boys. Everyone had been saying serious things, so I wanted to lighten things up. I’d never forgotten being told I was too intense back in 2006!

  Finally Ricky gave a stirring speech, bringing everything together. I felt the team was in a good place. Most of us had been there for several weeks now. We had games in Sussex and Worcestershire, a good preparation. The spirit reminded me of the beginning of our South Africa tour.

  In my opinion, we had a really good squad. We didn’t bowl teams out in the lead-up matches, but that didn’t worry me. I was keen to get runs under my belt after what felt like an eternal lean trot, but some of the guys were a bit casual about these games. We might have taken them more seriously.

  In a four-day match at Worcester, I made 150 against the England Lions, my first big score for a while. They had a good attack and the pitch was doing a bit early, so it left me feeling well prepared and hungry for the challenge going to the first Test in Cardiff.

  I’d played a few county games at Sophia Gardens, and the wicket was always an absolute belter. There was a lot of stress around the first Ashes Test, as always, but the pitch played beautifully and England made 435 before our batsmen cashed in massively – except me. It’s an embarrassing scorecard, from a personal point of view. Hughes 36, Katich 122, Ponting 150, Clarke 83, North 125 not out, Haddin 121 … and Hussey 3.

  Sometimes when you sit and watch a partnership for a very long time with the pads on, you play your innings in your head. I had that while watching Kato and Ricky put on 239 in about two sessions. When I found myself in the middle, everything was quicker and the ball was doing more off the seam and in the air than it had looked like. I went for a drive and got a nick and was on my way back.

  But the team was in a great position, and on the last day, starting with Cook and Ravi Bopara already out for 20, we were confident. Ben Hilfenhaus snared Pietersen, and then Nathan Hauritz got Strauss out with a long hop that he should have pasted to the boundary. We felt it was going our way. But slowly the momentum changed. Mitchell Johnson started to spray a few and lost his mojo. Paul Collingwood dug in. The crowd got into us. Late in the day, when we were getting desperate, Graeme Swann was hit on the fingers and called the physio, who strolled out, whistling ‘Dixie’. We were saying to the umpires, ‘Come on, they’re wasting time.’ Swanny had treatment, then got hit again, and the same charade was repeated. As a group, we got angry. Then they started running messages out, trying every trick in the book. Ricky was growing very frustrated, telling England’s support staff to get off. The umpires stepped in. But ultimately, Monty Panesar, of all people, hung in there with Jimmy Anderson for 12 overs and we couldn’t get the breakthrough.

  Not finishing the job when you’ve totally dominated a match can be demoralising. Being able to finish a Test match is the X-factor, and often you see teams that do a lot of good things but can’t quite get over that line. We’d done everything we could to win, but they’d hung on. We let out a great scream of frustration, whereas England felt like they’d had a bit of a win.

  In the second Test at Lord’s, having dominated the previous week, we needed to go that hard again, whereas the opposition knew they had to lift their level. In a counter-intuitive way, although we’d been the better team in Cardiff, England went into the second Test with a mental advantage.

  The first day at Lord’s was pivotal. I’ll never forget walking through the Long Room for the first time in a Test match, and it was packed. You could feel that every spectator in their suit and tie was desperate to be walking onto that field. The English batsmen came down their stairs, Cook and Strauss, and the roar shook the Long Room from the inside out. That rattled us, all that emotion. It’s a great experience, but it was daunting.

  We were horrible on the field. Cook and Strauss were 0/150 in the blink of an eye. We never looked like turning it around. Even if they stuffed up and got 400, we would be under pressure. It was the worst imaginable start. They were hitting boundary after boundary and we couldn’t change their momentum. Whatever Ricky tried couldn’t slow them down. It was out of control. There were players in our team who could remember Edgbaston in 2005, but nobody mentioned it in the dressing room. You don’t want to bring up bad memories. I just thought, We’re going to have to bat well in the first innings.

  England did stuff up a bit, only making 425. But that was more than enough. We were hanging on to save the game before we could think about winning it.

  I had such a point to prove, after what seemed like years since I’d made a decent Test score. What better place? What better circumstances? Hughesy and Ricky had gone early, but Kato and I were – well, determined isn’t the word. It was quite overcast. On a clear day in London, Lord’s can be a wonderful place to bat, but if it’s cloudy, the ball swings and seams. Unfortunately for us it was grey and drizzling, and the lights were on. They’d got early wickets and their tails were up. Kato and I got a good partnership going, just nibbling our way above the hundred, before Flintoff bowled an unbelievably good spell. I glanced up at the scoreboard and noticed he was nudging 150kmh. Gee, he’s really putting in. The crowd was very much behind him, as you’d expect.

  Kato holed out off Graham onions, but still, I was defending well, enjoying the battle and rotating the strike. I generally struggled with the Lord’s slope. Generally if they were bowling from the pavilion end, the ball went down the slope away from me. In county cricket, I got caught behind many times to balls running down the slope. I’d been told by other players to adapt and play outside what I thought the line was, which was hard, but I was trying. But then, Flintoff got a ball that pitched on my off-stump. I let it go, to run down the slope, but it seamed back the other way, up the slope, and cannoned into the stump. He did his flamboyant celebration. I was desperate to get a big score, but sometimes you’re undone by an amazing piece of bowling. So I trudged off Lord’s, very disappointed, but forced to give credit to the bowler.

  We battled, but in the end we had two days to survive. It was always going to be tough. We lost Hughes and Katich early. To believe you can bat two days, you normally need to get a good start. This time we were under serious pressure, always just one mistake away.

  I batted pretty well for 27 and went for a drive off Swanny. It spun massively and went to first slip. The English started celebrating. The umpire put his finger up. As I walked off, I suddenly thought, I didn’t hit that. I turned around. I must have hit it, it went to first slip and he gave it out straight away.

  My disappointment turned to rage when I climbed into the dressing room and saw the replay, which showed I’d missed the ball, not by a little bit but by several inches. I felt the fury build up. I was taking my shoes off as I watched it. You could have driven a London cab through the gap between my bat and the ball, and the commentators were saying, ‘No, he’s definitely missed that.’

  I lost it. What happened next is quite shameful. I threw down my boot, and it bounced up off my bag and put a hole … in the wall … of the Lord’s dressing room. I was absolutely distraught. This is the home of cricket and I’ve put
a hole in the wall.

  I sobered up quickly and went to the room attendant, Pete.

  ‘I’m really sorry, mate, my shoe has put a hole in the wall. Any damage that’s done, I’m happy to pay for, I’m so embarrassed, this is the worst day ever.’

  He said, ‘Don’t worry, Huss, it’ll be taken care of. No-one will ever know.’

  Next day, it was fixed. But I felt terrible to have desecrated the most famous cricket ground in the world. No injustice out in the middle was worth that.

  Meanwhile, Pup’s incredible second-innings 136 was unfolding. In my mind, it was as good as his triple hundred against India in Sydney and his 150 against South Africa at Newlands. He was in amazing form for that whole Ashes series. But truth be told, I wasn’t in a great state to appreciate it. Brad Haddin played really well too. It was tough to watch, knowing how well they were playing but also how futile it was, after all the work we’d left for them. The second new ball brought things to an end, and England were one up.

  Their players didn’t carry on too much in the post-match presentations. Strauss kept saying, ‘There’s a long way to go in the series.’ They were gracious in victory, the players that is. I didn’t take too much notice of the fans and I certainly wasn’t reading any press.

  I wasn’t the only one whose game was being picked apart on public view. Mitch Johnson was being alternately ridiculed and over-coached. He had enough going on in his head without me getting in there. I was trying to be as supportive as I could, but I didn’t know what was wrong. Was it mental, technical or what? He was probably getting a dozen other people giving him advice, so the last thing he needed was me confusing him any more. I thought he needed to relax, focus on a couple of things that had worked for him in the past, and let it go. You can get as much or as little help as you think you need, but at the end of the day you’re the one who has to sort it out.

  Phil Hughes was going through something similar. It seemed almost like a concerted campaign, targeting Phil and Mitch so soon after their great series in South Africa. It’s part and parcel of international cricket – your technique is scrutinised to death – and if you’re not comfortable with your own game and experienced enough to know what works for you, you’ll be under a lot of pressure.

  My message to any new player was the same as Warnie had given me in November 2005. You can’t fail if you play your way. Your game is the game that got you here. I understand that you can’t score runs all the time. Phil had done so well. I wanted to say, ‘You’ll be fine, mate, you’ve scored runs before.’

  But, as with Mitch, I didn’t want to be another distraction, and I was hardly in a position to offer advice. I was on the receiving end every day. People were saying to me, ‘For what it’s worth, I’ve noticed this small thing about your batting …’ I was like, ‘Thanks, but I’ve heard that from a dozen other places.’ My plan when I encountered this stuff was to read no press, stick to my own short list of things that work for me, and believe things would turn around. When you’re playing your best, your mind is clear. The challenge, when you’re playing badly, is to find a way back to that clarity.

  We went to Northampton, where Ricky and Pup were rested and I was captain of Australia. I loved that game, back at my old county where I had fond memories and good friends. The Northants squad had changed out of sight since I’d been there, but I knew the administrators and staff. To catch up and reminisce was fantastic. I was determined to do well in the game, too. We all got some runs, and ended up winning in the last half-hour. Andrew McDonald took four wickets after scoring 75. I’ve always been a huge fan of Ronnie. He loves the game and thinks about it a lot and I enjoy having a beer with him and talking cricket for hours. He’s a very honest bloke, and an underrated player. Every time he’s played for Australia he’s done a bloody good job, and it’s a shame that injuries have since put a brake on his career.

  The win gave us a lift for the third Test at Edgbaston. Phil Hughes was dropped for Shane Watson to come in as opener (and then got into hot water for leaking his disappointment to his mates and the world on Twitter), Graham Manou came in after Hadds broke his finger during the warm-up, and I made my now-regulation first-ball duck. And then it rained and rained. I played a lot of 500 on the first day. It was a frustrating and weird day. You’re always nervous when the pitch has been under cover, but Watto batted brilliantly. Coming in at 2/126, I left my first ball from onions and it cannoned into the top of off stump. We had the worst day yet, losing seven wickets in the first session, and again put ourselves under pressure.

  Our 263 began to look okay until Flintoff got away from us, and, with more rain around, we were under the pump again in our second dig. We couldn’t afford to drop this Test match, whereas England were in position to attack and attack and attack.

  In at 2/52, I felt that I was playing for my position. It was hard to filter out the chatter that I didn’t know where my off stump was anymore. Thankfully, I punched a four down the ground off onions to start. But if I got out we were under serious threat of losing. I battled my way to 64, just enough to keep the wolf from the door, but even then felt things were going against me. I played forward to a ball from Stuart Broad that bounced and seamed away, and I nicked it. I thought, I only need a little bit of luck. That ball had come out of nowhere. I wasn’t ever getting a second chance. But Pup and Northy got together and batted out the match, so at least we’d staved off falling 2–0 behind.

  That half-century shook something loose inside my head. Between the third and fourth Tests, I came to a resolution.

  We usually studied the opposition very closely, and I had been watching all the footage of Swann, Broad, Anderson and the others. The selected footage was of them bowling beautiful outswingers and inswingers and balls spinning square, and put me in a defensive and negative frame of mind. Because I’d been watching all this, I was expecting them to be moving it all over the place all the time.

  My mental routine, while I was batting, hadn’t been working for me. I would think, Stance, relax arms, clear mind, watch the ball … But eventually, you say it so many times it loses its power and might as well be saying, Throw the pillow against the wall. I tried to mix it up and say to myself, Watch the seam. But it wasn’t working either. Other guys liked to tinker with their routines to keep it fresh. Justin Langer, for instance, was one who needed something different all the time. I, on the other hand, liked the comfort of my proven routine. I was having too many negative thoughts for any routine to work, and it was driving me up the wall.

  I decided to put all that aside and just go out there and be positive. I went through all my dismissals from the summer against South Africa, the tour of South Africa, and so far in this Ashes series. I’d had a rough run with bad luck, but the other theme was that I’d got out being tentative. I was sure part of it came from watching this footage – When’s the big inswinger or outswinger or quick bouncer coming? I had too many preconceived ideas. I decided not to watch the footage anymore. I would be positive, no matter what.

  That was a big turning point in my career, though it didn’t bear fruit immediately.

  Headingley always felt like our Test match. In Edgbaston we’d had the Haddin injury, and here Matt Prior had back spasms during the warm-up and this caused confusion among their squad, as they were ringing around for someone else before he ended up playing. Strauss batted after winning the toss – fortunately, because Ricky would have done the same – and we got on a roll. In the fourth over, Marcus North took a blinding catch of Strauss at third slip. He never even saw it but stuck his hand out, and the ball was there. We got what we wanted, bowling England out for 102 in 34 overs. In our reply I was very positive, smacking my first couple of balls for four. Then Broad came in from around the wicket. I took a big step forward, and the ball seamed back and hit me. I had to be too far forward or outside the line, but I was fired out yet again.

  As an aside on umpires, I had a good rapport with them generally. But I had my opinions on some.
The umpires in that match were Billy Bowden and Asad Rauf. Billy was a nice guy but like all umpires gave some incorrect decisions and even if he had clearly stuffed up he would never admit he’d made a mistake. Also, I felt he was constantly worrying about side issues such as batsmen running on pitches, and fielders walking backwards to change position, rather than just trying to get his decisions right.

  Rauf was was also a very nice guy, though his decision-making lapsed at times. South Africa’s Rudi Koertzen had been a good umpire for a long time but was making more bad decisions by the end.

  The best during my career was probably Simon Taufel, though because he was Australian we didn’t have him for Test matches. Aleem Dar, who like Rauf was from Pakistan, gave me some bad decisions early in my career but improved out of sight and was close to the best in the world by the end. And a couple of the English guys, Mark Benson and Ian Gould, were very good. If Gould made a blunder, he put up his hand and said he’d made a shocking decision.

  Gould was a former Test player. In county cricket, most of the umpires were retired first-class players and had a great understanding of the game. They knew what was going through players’ minds. They’d been in every situation, and tended to make good decisions due to that experience.

  Australia has begun to train up some ex-players as umpires, and it’s going well. Paul Wilson and Rod Tucker are easier to respect, as distinguished past players, and Paul Reiffel’s decision-making is pretty good, though I did have one quite amusing run-in with him.

  In a Shield game against Victoria, we had two shocking decisions against us before lunch, one by Pistol. We were in line to get our lunch and the Victorians were taking the mickey out of us, which made me even angrier. After lunch I went into the umpires’ room and said, ‘We can’t afford these stuff-ups, the game’s too tight.’