What people meant about the house being a waste might not have been in terms of money so much as in it being too large for one person. The image was: big house, beautiful car, but no one to share it with. The fact was I liked inviting over family and friends for drinks and barbecues all the time. In the back of my mind was a vague idea that I would get married and have kids quite young, and set up a family and be a provider just like Mum and Dad had been for Leanne and me.
I began dating Lara Bingle six months after moving into Lilli Pilli. Before then, I had only had one long-term serious girlfriend, Erina, who I’d met while I was still at school. My dad’s cancer diagnosis came the next year, and Lara’s dad Graham passed away from liver and pancreatic cancer in 2008. Graham was an absolute gentleman, an easy-going surfer who never seemed stressed out by anything. He and my dad got on very well, as did both of our families, and it was devastating for all of us to see his decline. I missed the beginning of the West Indies tour that year to help her through her grief and also to be with Dad through a tough stage of his cancer treatment. There was never any question for me that family came first, even if it meant risking my place in the Australian team.
Even if I hadn’t scored a hundred in Antigua when I returned to the team, I would never have regretted making a priority of the big things in life.
If there was one thing I feel I earned through the years I spent with my ex-fiancée, it’s the right to privacy. We were photographed often in what I thought was our private time, we were chased by paparazzi, and then we had to wake up to stories in the newspapers that were total fabrications. Having been naive about how intense the public spotlight would be as an Australian cricketer, I was completely unprepared for the new level it went to when I was seeing her. I was never comfortable with the feeling that people were sitting in cars outside my home with cameras and were watching us, at times, 24/7. I can’t remember every episode in the media circus that our life became, but there were a few beauties. There was a photo of us talking once outside the changing rooms at the SCG, with an article saying we were arguing. That was a fabrication. We were only having a conversation. I was so cautious about privacy, if I wanted an argument, I would take it behind closed doors. Another was that we had bought a $10 million property in Coffs Harbour. That would have been clever, as we only went there to visit my grandparents. Maybe the best fabrication of all was the story that her engagement ring went down the toilet. That was another made-up story – the ring was in the safe of my apartment in Bondi. Somebody saw a plumber’s truck parked outside the block, and even though it was going to someone else’s apartment, it turned into a story that the ring had been flushed away.
Lara and I paid a high price for all of these concoctions, and I think, as a young person, when you pay that price you earn the right to keep sensitive things to yourself. I have been very open about my life in this book, but I feel that I earned the right, through all the violations of privacy that occurred when she and I were together, to draw the curtain. So much stuff was invented about us on a daily basis. I don’t know any young couple who could survive when their privacy is under that kind of repeated assault.
In 2010, when we broke up, it made more headlines – in part because I had to again place my private life ahead of cricket. The Australian team was in New Zealand for a three-Test tour, and when it became clear to me that our relationship was falling apart, I had no option. I could have stayed and played, but I know I would have done poorly and let the team down. I had to go home and sort out my life.
I was 28 years old. Anyone who goes through the break-up of a serious relationship at that age, when you are thinking of settling down, knows what a trauma it is. It’s devastating for any person, let alone when you are in a fishbowl.
The main reason our relationship didn’t work out was that I lost trust in her in a number of different ways. We were going in different directions with our lives. I was constantly committing and re-committing myself to cricket, with my obsessive focus, and she wanted to live a completely different kind of life. I had tried to make it work, but now I knew I had to call off the relationship. I didn’t choose cricket over her – I had felt that there was the possibility of working things out and accommodating both of our aspirations – but by the time I was in New Zealand, I was so unhappy it was affecting my life in every way. If it went on much longer like this, I wouldn’t have deserved to be with the team. Being as black-and-white as I am, I decided to go home and get my mind where it should be. I couldn’t be half-and-half. I had no choice but to do it face to face. I was no good to the team in New Zealand, and I am not the type of person who will break up a serious relationship, in which we had been engaged and were living together, by phone or text.
By then I had moved to Bondi, and when I came home from the tour to break up, the media was camped outside my apartment block. I rang my good friend Anthony Bell, and we cooked up a plan to get me out of there.
Belly and I had become friends around 2003 or 2004 after Neil D’Costa introduced us. He had become my accountant and then my financial adviser, and our friendship grew out of that. He was, outside my family, one of my closest confidants at that time, the mate I could open up to about my fears and emotions.
Over time, Belly became like a brother to me. He gets on really well with my family, and, like Mum has always done, looks after my money as if it’s his own. When we’ve been out for a drink, he’s been another set of eyes helping me out. He grew very close to Phillip Hughes as well, and we would spend some great times out on Belly’s 90-foot motor launch, Ghost. In fact, he introduces me to the water, through time on Ghost, his maxi yacht Loyal, and even his rubber ducky. He teaches me how to drive them and encourages me to get my boat licence. My friends become his friends, and his yacht is well named, because he is as loyal a person as I have ever met. In tough times, I am always able to rely on him, and he proved that in spades when he smuggled me away from the media’s eyes during my break-up.
He came to Bondi and parked in the garage. I slipped down through an internal lift and climbed into the boot of his car. He exited into the media circus. With all the cameras and microphones on him, he said, ‘No, Michael’s not in the house.’ That’s right – I was in the boot.
We went to his house, not too far away, where Mum and Dad came to talk it through with me. I told them how I was feeling, and we came to a resolution there. Belly was an amazing source of advice and friendship in one of the toughest times of my life. Later that year, Phillip Hughes came to my place at Bondi for a weekend and stayed for six weeks; he became the friend I could go and have a beer and talk nonsense with.
I thought I had my freedom when I got on the plane back to New Zealand. But a television journalist, pretending to be a normal passenger, had set up a camera to film me. That’s how crazy it was. A Qantas flight attendant said, ‘It’s illegal, mate, you can’t do it,’ but the media were out of control. My private heartbreak was public property.
Never has cricket felt like my ‘day off’ more than in the Test match at Wellington. Once I was in the middle, people couldn’t make up stories anymore about what I was doing. They could see me. Cricket was straightforward and out in the open. Funnily enough, that’s why it felt like, on the cricket ground, I had some space to myself. My phone wasn’t about to ring. If everyone could see what I was doing, they couldn’t speculate. My teammates were great, incredibly warm and welcoming, and the coach, Tim Nielsen, was amazing for me. Simon Katich was a great partner for the first couple of hours while I scratched away, and then, through the first afternoon into the second morning, I had Marcus North, a champion bloke, at the other end.
Getting close to my century, my thoughts began to close in about how much this would mean, and I struggled to concentrate. Northy just smiled and said, ‘Mate, if you see it, just hit it.’ I made 168 and Northy scored 112 not out, which helped set us up for a win, and lifted a mountain off my shoulders. More than anything, that week showed me what incredible family, friend
s and teammates I had.
After I become Australian captain in 2011, now that I am going out with Kyly, I discover a new equilibrium, if not peace. Maybe it’s a maturity that has to come with the captaincy and a serious relationship that will turn into marriage. Maybe it comes from results: in my first two years of captaincy, we win in Sri Lanka, draw in South Africa, beat India 4–0 at home, and win in the West Indies. I put together a run of big scores and have a calendar year, in 2012, that surpasses even Don Bradman. Obviously I find some inner calm and security from these team results, from the praise for my captaincy style, being awarded Wisden Cricketer of the Year, and for becoming number one batsman in the world. But more than anything, it’s probably just growing up and getting more experience of the world – of which I had precious little when I started out in the spotlight.
By now, Kyly is at the very centre of my life. She loves my family, and the feeling is mutual, with her and Leanne becoming as close as sisters. During the off season, we all box and train together – Kyly and me, Leanne and her partner Craig – and enjoy that healthy lifestyle. I have begun inviting Kyly to come with me on as many tours as she can manage. She is a great balancing influence. She’s calm and tolerant, and lenient towards my rigid routines and foibles. If I want to go to bed early and get my required hours of sleep, and get up at a time dictated by my regime, Kyly fits in. She’s incredibly kind towards me, even when I’m stressed and anxious and suffering back pain. When I’m out in the middle batting in a Test match, occasionally I’ll spot her in the stands and give her a wave. The first Christmas she spends with me on tour, in Melbourne before the 2010 Boxing Day Test match, I give her a present that Phillip Hughes takes note of.
‘He must really like you,’ Hughesy tells Kyly with his cheeky sparkle.
‘Why’s that?’ she asks.
Hughesy nods at the gift. It’s a Louis Vuitton roll-on travel bag. ‘He really wants you to be on tour with him. That’s how he’s telling you.’
And he’s right. From then on, Kyly becomes my constant companion not just during the off-season, but on cricket tours.
Neither of us want the pressure of a long engagement, and in the autumn of 2012 we cook up a secret plan. I never had a proper 30th birthday celebration, as I was preparing for my first tour as Australian captain, to Bangladesh. A year later, we organise what Kyly calls ‘the 30th birthday you never had’, only it’s got a twist. We invite a small group of family and friends to come to a resort in the Wolgan Valley, north of Lithgow on the far side of the Blue Mountains, for four days. We invent all sorts of cover stories: Kyly tells her family it’s a big event put on by Emirates, a sponsor of mine, and ‘we’d love you guys to come’. Her sister is pregnant and needs a lot of persuasion to miss a baby class. It’s all very cloak and dagger until, over dinner on the first night, as the entrees are coming out, I stand up in front of everyone and tell them we are engaged. After dessert, a letter is distributed to each of the tables, announcing that we are going to get married tomorrow. Because it’s a surprise, and because many of my cricketing friends are away playing in the Indian Premier League, I haven’t invited cricket people. It is an intimate occasion. I tell Dad that when he goes to his room, he will find another letter on his bedside. It contains the news that tomorrow, he will be my best man.
I’m told I was booed when I stepped onto the SCG for the first time as Test captain in 2011. I only remember being booed in Brisbane when I walked out to bat against South Africa in 2012. I score 259 not out and get a standing ovation walking off. That’s the only time I am aware of being booed by a home crowd. Selective memory! Maybe I am booed more often than that. But by this point, I accept that because of the style of person I am, a lot of people aren’t going to like me. I don’t care anymore if they don’t. I just want to earn their respect. The best way I can do that is perform as a cricketer and help the team to succeed. I believe that if I can steer Australia to winning back the Ashes, getting to number one in the world in all formats, and winning the World Cup at home in 2015, then it will no longer matter what people think of me as a person. They will have to respect me for what I will have done for my country.
By my last tour, in England in 2015, I try a completely novel approach: I decide not to read a single thing about me or the team during the whole Ashes tour. It might be just as well, as I barely score a run and we lose the Ashes with terrible collapses in Birmingham and Nottingham. But I sense, by now, that not reading things doesn’t help, because I just imagine the worst.
When I walk down the street, members of the public are always cheerful and supportive. What have I done to turn some of the media against me? I ask myself often, and I approach them for an explanation, but there is no satisfaction, because I’m chasing something that isn’t there. I can’t make the world see things my way – because it’s the world, it’s millions of people, and they all have their own minds.
When I retire at the end of the 2015 Ashes tour, the bubble is pricked and I am free. It’s incredible, the change in the way I see the world. Now I understand how ephemeral the media is. Things really do disappear from memory after one day. You turn a page of the newspaper, and you’ve forgotten what you read about who someone is dating and what car they drive. It really wasn’t that important. I wish I hadn’t dwelt on the negatives for so long or spent so much time puzzling over why I was portrayed a certain way. But I’m glad that clarity has arrived, with fatherhood and life outside the bubble. There was so much to be proud of, and which I am proud of now.
13
THE TWENTY20 REVOLUTION
In some ways, I was in the right place at the right time for the Twenty20 cricket revolution. When the first Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament was contested in 2008, I was 27 years old and doing well with the Australian Test and one-day teams. I had played in a winning World Cup campaign, and we were ranked number one in the world in both formats.
On the other hand, the circumstances never did quite align. I pulled out of the first IPL auction in 2008 to spend time with my father, whose cancer treatment was ongoing. Lara’s dad was about to pass away, and I wanted to stay at home for both of those reasons.
As the years went by, this pattern repeated. I put family and cricket for my country first, and later I had to look after my body as my back and hamstring injuries became more chronic. I signed up for the Pune Warriors for part of the 2012 IPL as a replacement for Yuvraj Singh when he was diagnosed with cancer, before coming home early for my wedding to Kyly.
I was busy with Australian international commitments for the first four Big Bash League tournaments, signing marketing contracts in two seasons with the Sydney Thunder with everyone knowing I would not be able to play.
Once I retired from international cricket in 2015, I was keen to play for the Melbourne Stars, but I needed a break from cricket by then and our daughter was about to be born, and the president of their board, Eddie McGuire, agreed that I should spend that time with my family.
Another reason I don’t have a front-seat experience of the first years of franchise Twenty20 cricket is that I didn’t practise for it. I focused on Test and one-day cricket because I prioritised those formats while playing for Australia, and I could see how I could improve at both without changing the fundamentals of my game. My record in one-day international cricket was good, averaging over 40, playing over 200 games, striking at nearly 80.
Playing Twenty20 until about 2012 was still manageable, from a technique point of view. For Australia, we tended not to train for it because our Twenty20 international games were at the end of seasons. The one tournament where I did have time to train and prepare, we made the final of the 2010 World Twenty20.
But later in my career, my batting would have had to change a lot to adapt to Twenty20’s accelerating needs. You’re trying to score boundaries, and hit at 1.5 runs a ball. For practice, guys were doing range-hitting, going to the middle of an oval to hit sixes. I never did that. Those techniques and methods flowed into one-day c
ricket towards the end of my career, when strike rates greater than 100 became more common, and batsmen were expected to step up to scoring eight to ten runs an over.
Although it didn’t play a major part in my career, I like Twenty20 cricket. It has helped the game become more entertaining and widened its appeal. More people come through the gates and watch cricket on TV in all the game’s formats due to the Twenty20 revolution, and that has to be a good thing. For people who want a quick fix – three hours of thrills and then go home – it’s made cricket accessible.
The IPL has been great for the relationships between countries. The environment around international cricket has become friendlier since the inception of the IPL, because players know each other better. Look at how Australia and India were at loggerheads in early 2008. A few months later, Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting were leading the Australian representation in IPL franchises. Andrew Symonds played with Harbhajan Singh. More recently, the Mumbai Indians had Sachin Tendulkar as assistant coach to Ricky Ponting, with Harbhajan in the same team. The after-effects of ‘Monkeygate’ didn’t run very deep, did they? It seemed like the worst conflict in the cricket world at the time, but the effect of the IPL has been to iron out those differences and enhance cultural understanding between players from different nations.
A lot has been said about the threat Twenty20 poses to Test cricket, and that threat is real. This threat comes in two forms. First, the compressed action and big hitting of a Twenty20 match will have an effect on the public’s tastes. People who are accustomed to seeing scoring rates of 10 or 15 runs an over and exciting chases might lose – or not develop – the patience for the subtleties of Test cricket. There will always be an audience for the five-day game, but already you can see it narrowing down to the ‘cricket tragics’, while youngsters and families who want their three hours of night-time fun are committed to Twenty20. If we see audiences in India migrating away from Test cricket in the next five years, then it’s time to worry. India’s financial strength is currently underwriting cricket around the world, and if people in that country lose interest in Test cricket, then the long game’s future is shaky.
My Story Page 16