The ball is swinging, and there’s only one thing for it. As Warney always told me, the better the bowling, the harder the conditions, the more positive you have to be. But easier said than done. Andrew Flintoff is a nightmare, fast and steepling. But James Anderson pitches up, and I get away with a cover drive for four. That seems to confirm the theory: stay positive, score runs. I get three boundaries off one Anderson over, all between point and mid-off, and it just feels right.
Once Huss and Northy are out, I am joined by Brad Haddin. It feels great to be batting with Hadds, here at Lord’s, and despite the desperate situation for our team the two of us can sense how special it is to be here, knowing where we’ve come from: all those years ago, training and playing together for New South Wales, spending nights out and dreaming that a day like this might one day arrive. Hadds is also great to bat with because, like Andrew Symonds and Mike Hussey, he is an aggressive runner between wickets. We want every single we can take, and when we punch it through the infield we want a two, maybe a three. I am fitter and leaner now than I was early in my career, and don’t feel any fatigue. I once didn’t know how fit you really had to be for Test cricket, but I do now.
Even with the match situation being what it is, Hadds and I have a ball. We bat for 50 overs together and put on 185 runs, getting through to stumps at five for 313. There are even thoughts of an unlikely win. Flintoff gets Hadds for 80 in his first over on the last day, but Mitch Johnson and I set about building another partnership.
We have got the required runs down to 166 when Graeme Swann lobs up what looks like a juicy full toss. I can see this going for four through mid-off. Somehow I miss it, and am bowled. It’s devastating, because I really thought we could win this.
They clap me off and through the Long Room, and the mixed emotions of cricket couldn’t be more contrasting. To get your name on the honour board at Lord’s for a century is a nice accolade in a batsman’s career, and yet I’ve also let the team down with that shot. It turns out to be the story of that Ashes campaign: many individual highlights, but as a team we can’t manage to convert them into Test match wins.
By the time we go to England in 2013, the world will have turned again. Punter will have stepped down as captain after we lose to England in 2010–11, Australia’s first home Ashes loss since the mid-1980s. I am going to England as captain now, but we are a team in upheaval. Our Ashes planning anticipates both Punter and Mike Hussey going for a final England tour, but both retire in the 2012–13 summer. We will build up to this campaign for two years with Mickey Arthur as head coach, but our series loss in India in early 2013 puts paid to that. When we arrive at Trent Bridge for the first of five Ashes Test matches, we are rank outsiders.
Early 2013 will certainly be the most challenging period of my career so far: ‘Homeworkgate’, losing 4–0 in India, and having our coach replaced 18 days before the Ashes. It’s a time when everything seems to be up in the air. My chronic back injury is getting worse and worse. By this stage of my career, the responsibilities of captaincy add a lot to my workload, while I am still trying to maintain my training and preparation to contribute as best I can as a batsman.
Over the previous two years, I have been scoring heavily while a lot of new batsmen were coming into our line-up, and in the lead-up to the 2013 Ashes this was adding to the expectation. I am happy, of course, to take on that responsibility, having admired the way Punter shouldered it for so many years, but in 2013 I am in almost constant discomfort with my back and hamstrings. My build-up in England is dictated as much by my need to be close to a MedX machine in London as it is by match practice.
With all this as background, I am as proud of that 2013 team as of any other I play in. We lose the series 3–0, but it is closer than that. At Trent Bridge, the amazing tenth-wicket world record partnership between Ashton Agar and Phillip Hughes keeps us in contention. In the changing room, as their stand builds, we count every single run and stick to our seats, superstitiously, like it’s the last wicket on the last day. I love seeing the two lefties out there, both so talented, and now Hughesy, who has always been the youngster in teams he’s been in, playing the part of elder statesman. Ashton idolises Hughesy and it’s moving to see him in this role. Before the series, Hughesy and I have talked a lot about whether he should captain South Australia or the Adelaide Strikers if he gets the chance, and I’ve urged him to put his hand up for it. Now I see him in that leadership role. He has the gift of getting the most out of people, and he’s doing it with Ashton. We knew Ashton was a good batsman, but his scoring 98 on debut catches us by pleasant surprise. As the runs pile up, there’s a bit of joking in the changing room at the expense of Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc and James Pattinson, all of whom have batted higher than Ashton in this innings. It won’t be happening again!
It’s a great Test match, right up to the final day, when all seems lost and Brad Haddin and James Pattinson build another stand at the end of the innings. It is heartbreaking to fall 14 runs short, a wafer-thin difference that means much, much more. For us, a win would have provided enormous self-belief after losing four straight matches in India. For England, the win reassures them that the plans they are pursuing under coach Andy Flower and captain Alastair Cook are working. They carry that momentum to Lord’s, where they take a 2–0 advantage.
We still believe we can win the series, and the wheel seems to be turning our way in the Third Test at Old Trafford. I win the toss and we bat on yet another dry pitch that heavily favours the side batting first. I make 187 in our score of seven for 527, the first time in the series we have been able to establish a stronghold. We remain well ahead in the game and are very confident we can finish England off on the last day, but a steady downpour puts an end to that and enables our hosts to celebrate retaining the Ashes.
A loss in Durham and a draw at The Oval mean we go down in the series without winning a Test match, but we are sticking to our bowling plans, which we will bring to full fruition in Australia three months later. Unusually, two Ashes series are being played back-to-back in 2013. We play full-on to win in England, but we also keep an eye on the return series in Australia. Through the England Test matches, our bowling unit of Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, Jackson Bird, James Pattinson and James Faulkner chisel away at the England top order with tight lines and specific plans for different players. Ian Bell gets away from us a few times, but Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen don’t contribute as many runs as previously against us.
On that tour, coming off the back of our disaster in India, you would normally expect a team to fracture. We undergo a lot of personnel changes, we are dealing with a new coach, and we don’t win a Test match, all prime ingredients for faltering morale and performance. Instead, we hold firm throughout, fired up by our eagerness to get England in our back yard later in the year. Harris, Siddle and Lyon come into their own on that tour, and Mitchell Johnson, after a lay-off from the game, is about to come back to provide us with our X-factor.
All up, I suppose you could look at that 2013 Ashes tour as an excellent build-up to the series that followed it. We grow more and more sick of losing, until we won’t take it any more. We are not happy with our results, but in a good way. We gain clear sight of what we need to do to fix it, and the back-to-back schedule is giving us the chance to do it straight away, rather than wait two years.
For me personally, it is a different kind of tour. My cricket now is my profession as much as my love, and my back injury means I have to put more and more time into off-field preparation. Evenings are spent quietly with Kyly and my other closest companion, physio Alex Kountouris. The job of captaincy runs 24/7, while the adjustment to a new coaching structure means we have a lot of meetings. I do enjoy it – don’t get me wrong – but in a different kind of way from the more carefree tours of England in the past.
The 2015 tour will be another animal yet again. We go to England with a strong sense of destiny. A lot of things feel so right: w
e have beaten England 5–0 at home and then defeated South Africa and India. We have won the 2015 World Cup. I have never been on an Ashes trip when we’ve been better prepared. En route to England, we win a Test series in the West Indies in poor conditions on very slow wickets, a tough tour marked by an absence of any whingeing from the boys.
Once we are in England, we win all of our practice games. That is our goal: to win everything. When I have spoken to Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh about how to succeed in England, the first thing AB says is, ‘Get more first-class games, and don’t muck around with them. Play them to win.’ That suits us fine. We have plenty of cricket and training before the First Test and prepare with new Duke balls that swing and seam.
The first domino to fall is Ryan Harris. Rhino is the cornerstone of our bowling plans after his comeback to Test cricket during the 2013 Ashes tour. His knee gives him grief every time he plays, but there are times, such as when he picks himself up off the canvas to deliver the final match-winning spell at Cape Town in 2014, when he is truly heroic – there’s no other word for it. Through the second part of the Australian 2014–15 summer, Rhino has been cotton-woolled by selectors, and then he stays at home while we go to the West Indies to be with his wife Cherie for the birth of their first child and to get himself fully fit for the Ashes. The strength and conditioning coaches tell me regularly that he’s in as good nick as he’s ever been.
Rhino is a champion bloke, a real team leader, and everyone looks forward to his return, which gives us a huge boost on the eve of the Ashes series. Will this be it, finally? Everything feels perfect to me, until, three days before the First Test in Cardiff, Rhino’s knee flares up and the X-rays show a fracture. The medical staff quickly ascertain that this is not something that will mend during the tour. For Rhino, at 35 years of age with a long history of knee injuries behind him, it means retirement. For me, as his captain, it’s devastating. I feel that the effect of losing Rhino is as critical as losing Glenn McGrath in 2005, but I keep those thoughts to myself.
I try to force it to the back of my mind, but I can’t let go of my regret about Rhino’s absence. In the conditions we get through the series, he would have been unplayable. We are expecting dry wickets, in line with what England served up in 2013, and we do get a barren, thatchy pitch in Cardiff, where England outplay us in all departments. However, after another dry pitch at Lord’s, where we turn the tables, the pitch preparation does a U-turn.
It is no secret that English curators are participants in the game plan, and a decision appears to have been made. Against the pattern of the previous seven Test matches over two series, the Third and Fourth Tests of 2015 take place on underprepared green seamers at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge, the latter being the worst pitch I ever see in my 115 Test matches.
Throughout, as the series develops this way, I can’t shake off how much we are missing Rhino. These are seaming conditions, and he is our one authentic seam bowler. Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc swing the ball, but don’t seam it. Josh Hazlewood can seam the ball, but still lacks experience. I stand at slip, watching things unravel, thinking, If Ryan Harris is in our attack, it’s a completely different series. I don’t even think they’d have prepared these wickets if he was fit.
That’s not a good way to think, but it’s indicative of my mindset. Knowing that I will most likely retire at the end of the series, win or lose, might have caused a subtle change in my psychological approach. Through my career, I have seen cricketers get clouded over by a sense of ‘Here’s another thing not going my way’, and before they know it they feel that the whole world is against them. That has never been me. I don’t pity myself, but there’s no doubt things are adding up.
Fatigue from a big summer starts to catch up with a few of the guys. We thought we were still up for the challenge, but deep down some of us are burnt out from a long Australian summer, followed by the World Cup, the IPL, the West Indies and England: almost a year of uninterrupted cricket. It is one of the times when, if we were winning, none of those distractions would be visible. But because we lose at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge, five or six different factors continue to niggle.
The team, I have to say, are awesome throughout. Their attitude at training has been unbelievable. I get a lift from them. I wish I could give more back. Becoming desperate about my need to contribute runs, I set myself to work harder. I never knew anyone in cricket who got better from doing less. Even Warney wouldn’t leave the nets until he was bowling the way he wanted. He wouldn’t run laps, but he prepared really thoroughly.
I look at each individual at training and think, This guy’s ready. Everything I want as a captain, they give me 10 out of 10.
Now it is up to me. Why am I feeling so slow on my feet? I’ve faced faster than Broad, Anderson and the rest, in tougher conditions, and had no problems. Am I over-practising, hitting balls for the sake of hitting balls at training? Something’s not right. My body is fine, but my mind has moved on. Maybe I need someone like Pricey to step in and say, ‘Forget about cricket, have a night out with Kev.’
That would have happened when I was 21. There is no such option when I am 34, nearing the end, and battling with my demons and confusions.
A win at The Oval in my farewell Test match, and a 3–2 scoreline, hardly allays the disappointment. It still eats away at me. I feel that it was the only thing I didn’t achieve in my career, winning a Test series in England. It’s hard to swallow, considering how much I loved playing there.
12
CHASING THE MIRAGE
On 18 January 2003, I get off the plane in Coffs Harbour with my New South Wales teammates, super-excited about a one-day ING Cup match tomorrow. Here’s an illustration of the strength of domestic cricket: stepping into the terminal with me are Steve and Mark Waugh, Michael Slater, Stuart MacGill, Brad Haddin, Simon Katich and several other top-line players. Our opponents, Western Australia, have Justin Langer, Mike Hussey, Chris Rogers and Shaun Marsh. None of these players, on either side, is a current member of the Australian one-day team.
We go through the terminal and pick up our cricket bags. I am in the bus waiting to leave for the hotel when our team manager comes up with a flustered look, his mobile phone in his hand.
‘Michael, you’ve got to turn around.’
My stomach sinks. What have I done wrong?
‘You’ve got to fly back to Sydney,’ he says. ‘They’ve picked you in the one-dayer.’
I’m confused. ‘I’m here for the one-dayer.’
He shakes his head, caught up with the logistical complications.
‘No, Australia. You’re in the one-dayer in Adelaide.’
My first thought is, Oh no. My hand goes up to my head, as if to check that it’s still there. It is – not my head, but my new hairstyle. I have just had my head shaved to a stubble and dyed white. It looks like a tennis ball. No way, I can’t play for Australia on television until it grows back. I’ll look like an absolute idiot.
Fixing my head doesn’t seem to be an option. I fly back to Sydney and connect to Adelaide, and if I can do nothing about the outside of my head, I can try to get the inside in order. Australia are playing a triangular one-day series with England and Sri Lanka. With an eye to preparing for the World Cup in South Africa next month, two of the frontline batsmen – Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting – have been left out of the game in Adelaide, while Darren Lehmann is suspended on a racial vilification charge. I’m only 21 years old, and still the kid in the New South Wales team. It doesn’t seem real that I’m playing for Australia.
When I get to my room in the Holiday Inn in Hindley Street, my heart skips a beat. A green Australian cricket coffin is on the floor, with my name on it. My clothes are laid out inside, and I try them on: every shirt, every pair of pants. On the back of the shirts is CLARKE. I don’t think I have felt so hyped-up in my whole life. I even forget about my haircut.
My New South Wales teammates in the Australian team, Michael Bevan and Nathan Br
acken, make me welcome and share a Thai meal with me across the road from the hotel. I don’t sleep very soundly, unable to wait for the next day. I’ve fallen asleep at night dreaming of this since I was a child, and now here I am.
The morning passes in a blur, but the game is a fantasy. England bat first, and we get through their top order without much trouble. Adam Gilchrist, who is standing in as captain for Ricky Ponting, gives me the ball and I roll the arm over for seven overs, not giving away too many runs and even getting a wicket, Ronnie Irani caught by Bevo on the boundary trying to hit me into the Torrens.
Chasing 153, we lose Gilly and Jimmy Maher in the first three overs. Damien Martyn and Bevo steady us, but with about 60 runs to get, we collapse. Bevo and pinch-hitter Brett Lee are out within the space of five balls, and I’m out there with Marto. A couple of overs later, he and Andrew Symonds are both out. We still need 49 runs to win in 13 overs when Shane Watson joins me. Suddenly England are favourites.
Stepping up from domestic to international cricket is about so much more than just the standard of play. This is my first time batting in front of more than a few hundred people. I might have dreamed of this occasion, and consciously visualised it a million times – but that gives me no clue as to whether I’m going to enjoy it or not. I think I will, but I won’t know until it’s happening. A lot of cricketers, I know, are fundamentally shy and don’t relish the attention, but to me it feels normal. With all these people watching, with the gold shirt on, with the blue shirts surrounding me, knowing: This is the big stage, it’s odd but I don’t feel any different. I kind of like it, but am not sure how much yet.
My Story Page 14