Pistol opened up both barrels: ‘Mate, why don’t you get stuffed? There’s a forum for this after the game. Bring it up then. Now’s not the right time, so bugger off out of our room.’
I wandered back to the WA dressing room with my tail between my legs, having been put well and truly in my place.
Meanwhile in Headingley, Northy made another unbelievably good century, and Michael Clarke got 93. We were very confident of winning, but England had fought well in Cardiff when we’d been on top. Please, I thought, can we do it one more time!
Mitchell Johnson had one of those days when he got it right. He looked like getting a wicket every single ball. Swinging it into the right-handers at great pace, he bowled like a genius. Ben Hilfenhaus got four wickets and we won the Test match. What a great feeling: our first win, 1–1 going into the last match. We celebrated really well that night, staying in the dressing room for hours. Headingley had a weird, small, rectangular room with a low roof, like a little box. We sang the song, throwing beer and champagne all over each other. The floor was like a bath, various fluids flowing up around our ankles. This was why we played the game. After weeks of collective self-doubt, we’d proved to ourselves that we could compete.
For the whole tour, there had been conjecture and criticism around our bowling attack. At Headingley, on a seaming wicket, we had played four quicks: Peter Siddle, Mitch Johnson, Ben Hilfenhaus and Stuart Clark. There was a school of thought that these were our best four bowlers and we should stick with a winning team.
On the other hand, the wicket we came upon at the oval looked very bare, tailor-made for spin. The choice was between Stuey Clark or Nathan Hauritz, and it was weird for those two. The morning of the match, they were standing together before the warm-up. Jamie Cox was the selector on duty. He walked over towards them. Stuey, always a straight shooter, said, ‘Come on, Coxy, who is it?’
Jamie pointed to Stuey and said, ‘You’re it. Sorry, Haury, you’re out.’
That was a real gamble, and we knew it. We bowled first and England put together a solid first day to be 8/307 at stumps. We’d stuck at our task, but the pitch was taking a fair bit of turn even with Northy bowling his tweakers. Maybe we should have gone in with a spinner? Stuey didn’t get any wickets, and it was only going to spin more.
England got to 332 the next morning. Watto and Kato both started well again, but just before lunch, some drizzle started to fall. The umpires were wanting to get the game to lunch and prolonged it, letting more rain fall on the wicket. They took forever to get the covers on the pitch. I was standing on the balcony saying, ‘Get the covers on, for goodness sake!’
For half an hour, that moisture on the pitch made the ball seam wildly. I know it sounds like an excuse, but it just seemed like the gods, together with some inattention from the umpires, were conspiring against us. We lost Watto straight after lunch, then Ricky, and then I was lbw third ball. I rated Broad highly as a bowler, aggressive and tall and prepared to try things, and with the assistance of that fresh shower on the wicket he was running through us. The dampness also helped the ball grip and spin, and Swanny took wickets at the other end. By tea we were eight down, and under enormous pressure. It was the session that turned the series.
I was close to breaking point. Although I’d tried to be more positive, I had responded with more of the same: 10 and 0. Ian Chappell was saying that this had to be my last Test match. I was finished, I was past it, they had to bring in new players. After I got out for a duck, he was repeating that I definitely had to go.
The television commentary was saying the same thing that afternoon. Michael Clarke was in the dressing room, and in my earshot he was saying to a few of the guys, ‘I don’t want to jinx anything, but I’ve seen this before.’
What he was saying was, when someone is completely written off they come out and score a hundred and save their career. That’s all he said, but I knew he was referring to me. Very subtly, it felt like a vote of confidence.
In the second innings, Strauss left his bowlers two and a bit days to bowl us out. We had next to no chance of winning, but we had no choice but to try. On the third night, when Shane Watson and Simon Katich were not out and we had this mountain to climb, I was thinking, If this is going to be my last Test innings, then stuff it, what will be will be, I’m going to enjoy it. I’m not going to let my last memory of Test cricket be tense and agonising. If I get out, who cares, it’s my last game anyway.
On the fourth morning, both openers were out early and as I walked out to bat, winning the game wasn’t in my mind, I was just soaking it all in: my last Test match. It had been a great four years. I’d never expected it to happen, so I could only regard it as a bonus. There were so many great memories. I was thankful to have had the chance, when so many others had gone close but missed out.
Under no pressure and feeling no tension at all, funnily enough, I found that the little things started going my way. I got to 50, and Paul Collingwood dropped me. In a philosophical, almost dreamy mood, I thought, That’s amazing; the difference between a great series and a poor one is a little bit of luck. That would have been the end. Now, for some reason, the luck has gone my way.
Soon after, I was involved in the most gut-wrenching moment for our team. I hit a ball to mid-on and thought there was a run there. Ricky and I had a great understanding between wickets. Andrew Flintoff, the fieldsman, was injured, basically on one leg. He had no chance. Ricky went, Flintoff picked up and hurled the ball wildly, and when Ricky’s bat was millimetres short of safety, the ball broke the stumps at his end.
Against the odds, Michael Clarke was proved right: I batted on and made a century. We lost wickets at the other end, though, and I was the last to fall. It was a bittersweet day. I’d saved my career, but it’s a horrible feeling to be out there when you’re losing the Ashes. The English spectators and players were going nuts, and I just wanted to get off the field.
In the dressing room, only Ben Hilfenhaus, the number eleven, was with me, the other players having gone out to shake hands and endure the presentation. My head was in my hands as the pain sank in. I was fighting back tears. Scoring that hundred was no consolation. We’d lost the Ashes. I was glad none of my other teammates were in there. It felt like the worst day in my life.
At length, I had to take a deep breath, get my gear off, go down there and cop it on the chin. England had copped it for so many years, and now it was our turn. We just had to take it graciously.
With the Ashes behind us, I made a pact with myself: I would stop putting too much pressure on myself and carry that attitude of freedom with which I’d batted at the oval for the rest of my career.
Easier said than done. We had three one-day series straight after the Ashes: against England in England, the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa, and then against India in India. It speaks volumes of the Australian team’s resilience that after the despair of losing the Ashes, we won all three. But I was still up and down.
During the one-dayers in England, I had a chat with Mike Young at Nottingham. Essentially the message was the same.
‘Far out, Youngy, where am I at? I’m really worried I’m going to get dropped.’
‘Huss, if you’re to go out, go out swinging. Swing the lumber, man!’
Some things translate easily from baseball. I started swinging the lumber, and my form trickled back.
In the Champions Trophy, we were missing six to eight first-choice players and had basically a brand-new team, with only Ricky and Brett Lee as the senior luminaries. For some reason, though, we had a relaxed and happy atmosphere, a bit of joy in our lives, and we played like it. We got used to Centurion, where we had most of our games, and got on a roll. Our last qualifier was against Pakistan. They batted first, and their batsmen didn’t take the initiative, instead knocking it around without taking risks. We were cruising in the run chase until a mid-innings collapse. It was a really exciting match, and we got a bye on the last ball to win. Because of Pakistan’s batt
ing, the boys started talking about the match-fixing side of things. That’s the problem with Pakistan’s past behaviour: it leaves question marks over what might be innocent vagaries in the game. In the lift going up to our rooms, the fast bowler Mohammad Asif said to me, ‘It’s nice for you guys to be challenged about match fixing rather than us all the time.’ I laughed as if he was joking, but I think he was serious! He might have thought we were trying to fix the game by losing wickets quickly. Later, looking back, knowing that Asif was convicted over match-fixing, it seems even more surreal.
For the semi-final and the final, Watto took charge at the top of the order, much as Matthew Hayden had done in the 2007 World Cup. Against England in the semi, I could kick back and enjoy the brutality. England simply didn’t know where to bowl. Every ball was sailing away to, or over, the boundary. He did it again in the final against New Zealand. He just targeted a bowler and tried to hit every ball for six. He got all his weight on his back foot and pounced forward, launching himself into the ball, as intimidating as a batsman can be.
Over the years, it became one of the most talked-about issues in Australian cricket, how Watto was so devastating in the short formats but couldn’t convert in Test cricket. The difference, in my view, had to be mental. He had just done a great job in 2009 opening the batting. That he got so many starts, so consistently, yet couldn’t turn them into big scores, had to derive from lapses in concentration. We certainly didn’t want to make an issue of it – we just stayed supportive, as with all players who were struggling – but it’s not as if Watto was struggling. It was a strange situation where he was doing a fine job for Australia, but seemed under pressure because his average remained in the 30s and, at the time of writing, he had been playing Test cricket for eight years while making just two centuries.
For a few series, he kept getting out in the 90s. People measure a batsman by his centuries, not his nineties. I didn’t think he would care so much, but now that I’ve retired, I get the sense that you do care a lot more after you’ve stopped playing. I suspect that if things don’t change, it will nag at Watto later.
But the more pressing question was that he would inevitably become vulnerable to selectors. There wouldn’t be much debate if he’d made ten centuries, or if selectors talked about 90-plus scores as the measure, but the reality was that they were talking about the lack of centuries and the comparatively low average. As a supporter of Shane, I felt that your average was not always a fair reflection of your usefulness to the team. Your average went up when you converted 60s and 70s into 150s. You might make just as many starts and just as many failures, but one series your starts turn into 50s, and another series your starts turn into 200s. That’s what gets your average up. But my view on Watto was that in the three Ashes Tests he played in 2009, for instance, he was one of our best batsmen because he was safe and consistent at the top of the order. He always did the job for us. His not making any centuries didn’t change that fact.
The tour to India after the Champions Trophy was also very enjoyable, and our young team played enthusiastic, powerful cricket. I had a highlight in the match in Hyderabad, when Sachin Tendulkar was tearing us apart as only he could. You could bowl the ball in the same place four times, and he’d hit boundaries in four different quadrants of the field, all out of the middle of the bat. Whatever we tried, he had a counter-plan and read our minds.
We were getting back into the match, thanks to a great long-range run-out by Nathan Hauritz, but Sachin was still in. Out of nowhere, Ricky asked me to have a bowl. Like a man going to the gallows, I trundled up to Sachin. To my surprise, I only went for four off the over. He must have been thinking, I can’t get out to this quality of bowling, so he treated me with more respect than I warranted.
I thought, Great, I can be taken off now, I’ve done my job.
But to my horror, Ricky said, ‘No, that was a great over, let’s go again.’
In my second over, Sachin whacked two fours. I reckon he was thinking, This guy has to go, but not too much, if I don’t belt him too hard I might get him another over.
At the end of it, I thought, That’s me done. Two overs for twelve, that’s pretty good, I’m happy with that.
But Ricky wanted me to bowl another over. I thought, Are you serious?
Sure enough, in my last over they smashed me for fourteen, and Sachin was hitting me wherever he wanted to. I’d been ‘Tendulkared’.
What was great about having several youngsters in the team, including Callum Ferguson, Adam Voges, Doug Bollinger, Shaun Marsh and Cameron White, was that they were all too keen and bubbly to allow any negative thoughts to take hold. The second-last game was a day match in Guwahati, an out-of-the-way place that took a day to get to. The hotel beds were like rock, the phones had no reception, and the food was iffie at best. We had to wake up for the game at five-thirty in the morning. First ball, Virender Sehwag hit Mitch Johnson for a six over point. It would have been natural to fall into pessimistic thinking, but this group didn’t allow it to happen, and we won again. That trio of one-day series victories – England, the Champions Trophy and India – was one of my happiest and proudest periods playing for Australia, and lifted the spirit of the whole team after the Ashes.
But when we got home, we were straight into a Test series with the West Indies. The Australian audience and commentators hadn’t paid much attention to our one-day wins. Their minds were still on the Ashes, and on who had to go. At thirty-four, I was under the microscope. I had to score runs or else I’d be dropped, despite the fact that I’d scored Australia’s last Test century. Surely, I thought, my place wasn’t up for grabs? But the commentary was all Get rid of Hussey, he’s too old, let’s look to the future.
John Buchanan got in touch. With his usual quiet insight, he said, ‘Huss, if you continue trying to protect what you’ve done, you’ll get these results. Let go of what you’ve done. The sky’s your limit. Look ahead, not backwards. Forget about protecting what you’ve done in the past. Let the tension out of your body and the thoughts out of your mind.’
It was great advice. I had been protecting what I’d done; my first three years in Test cricket had been so good, it felt like I had to fight to maintain that record. I’d been looking backwards. Armed with that advice, I batted okay in the first Test at the Gabba and made 60. Walking off, I was thinking, Phew, that felt good … but is that enough? I’d let a big opportunity go. I could have kept the doomsayers at bay if I’d turned that into 150.
They were still after my head when we went to Adelaide, and again I played okay. It was reverse-swinging and Dwayne Bravo got me.
When the ball is reversing, it swings very late. My response is to keep my backlift low and avoid committing my footwork too early. Thrusting forward along the line of the ball is how you get out lbw. So I had a deliberate plan to use less, rather than more, footwork. Unfortunately I nicked one while we were trying to hang on for a draw, and past players were saying my footwork was terrible. I was really disappointed, because people who’ve played reverse-swing bowling should know you adjust your technique. People criticising my footwork were taking a cheap shot and it wasn’t true.
So I was under the pump coming to the third Test at the WACA. Chris Gayle said to me after Adelaide,’ Why do these people hate you so much, why do they want to get rid of you?’
I said, ‘I don’t know, mate.’
He said, ‘You’re a really good player, they can’t drop you.’
I said, ‘Good, well, can you go and tell them?’
In Perth, I hit one of my first balls through cover for four, always a good sign. Bravo looked at me as if to say, Gee, he’s on today. I got to 82 – adequate again, but desperately disappointing too.
Maybe I was being oversensitive, but it now seemed that every summer was starting with the question of ‘How long can they hold on to Hussey?’ I didn’t read the newspapers – another distraction I could do without – but it’s difficult to filter everything out when you’re the one
who’s under the pump. On television, a past player would be saying, ‘Hussey has to go.’ or on an opinion show, panellists who knew nothing about cricket would be jumping on the bandwagon. I would lunge for the remote to switch it to something else. Or, friends and family would mention an article about you. ‘oh, bloody Ian Healy, I can’t believe what he was saying about you.’ Without having read the article myself, I got the gist of what was being said.
When I was interviewed myself, my response every single time was the same boring thing: ‘I have the backing of the captain, I know if I keep believing in my game it will come around.’ I thought that if I said the same message over and over and over, they would get bored with me and go off in a new direction. It was a skill that Dad, as a communications official with the West Australian government, had perfected when I was a kid: holding long, amicable conversations with journalists, speaking a lot while actually saying nothing at all.
In that Perth Test match, I think the razor gang did get bored with me. Also, they found a new target. Throughout that series, Ricky was starting to struggle with the pace and fire of Kemar Roach. I hadn’t noticed anything until he was hit on the arm at the WACA. We’d never seen Ricky get hit, or when he did, he shrugged it off instantly. Even broken fingers didn’t worry him. This one hit him and hurt him. He was in the physio’s hands for a very long time, so we knew it had to be serious.
I didn’t think he was in decline as a batsman, but, having had my struggles, I empathised with him when the discussion of ‘When’s Ricky going to go?’ began, he’s a great player, but he’s still just a man. Things weren’t going to plan for him that summer; it happens to everyone. I never worried about it being irreversible though. A quality player, even if he has a run of outs, will come back to the top. That’s how the game works.
After we beat the West Indies 2–0, we started our series against Pakistan. In the first innings, Shane Watson was on 93 when he got into an embarrassing mix-up with Simon Katich; they both ended up at the same end and Watto was ruled out. That was just the latest in a string of agonising nineties. But then, in the second innings, Watto finally made his first Test hundred – just. He should have been out on 99. Pakistan’s captain, Mohammad Yousuf, had put Abdur Rauf, a debutant fast bowler, at point, a critical position for Watto. We couldn’t believe it when we saw Rauf fielding there. On 99, Watto sliced a catch to him. Rauf spilt it, and Watto sneaked through for a single. What a place to do it, on the MCG in front of his mum and dad. I was really happy for him, knowing how he would be feeling, and wanting him to experience that. I hoped it would inspire him to many more.
Underneath the Southern Cross Page 24