That’s when I love the captaincy and wouldn’t swap it for any job in the world.
THE INNINGS
161 not out versus South Africa, Cape Town, 2014
During my Test debut, I took my helmet off at 98, even though the Indian fast bowlers were on, because I’d promised Dad I was going to be wearing my baggy green if I ever made my first hundred for Australia. Did I care about being hit on the head? Not a chance. Twelve years later, I had become worried about helmets. After Phillip Hughes died, the thought was unavoidable: You can die playing this sport. Before then, I did not fear short-pitched bowling one bit. I may have looked uncomfortable at times, but I was not scared.
When Morne Morkel launches a four-over spell of constant short-pitched bowling at me in Cape Town in 2014, I have no fear. I am more concerned that I haven’t scored many runs in a series that means everything to me.
The ICC world Test rankings have their critics, but when I accepted the job of Australian captain, those rankings were our benchmark. We were ranked fifth, and I vowed to take us back to number one. Through all the ups and downs and criticism, I told everyone in the group that if we kept the faith and made good plans and stuck to them, we would get back to the top. It was an obsession. And now, in this series against South Africa in South Africa, after we’ve beaten England 5–0 at home, we have the chance to go number one. But only if we win in Cape Town.
In Centurion and Port Elizabeth, the results have split both ways. Mitch Johnson and Davey Warner have been stars for us, with Ryan Harris, Nathan Lyon, Chris Rogers, Shaun Marsh, Steve Smith and Alex Doolan all pitching in at times. Conspicuously absent has been myself: I’ve barely been able to make a run, whether on the bouncy pitch at Centurion or the wearing, reverse-swinging deck at Port Elizabeth.
On a sunny first morning at Newlands, the top order gets us off to a flyer: we are two for 138 when I go out in the 32nd over. Davey is in the form of his life, and while it would be nice to strap in and enjoy the ride, I’m not batting well at the beginning. I am so desperate to help us win, I’m tight and nothing is coming easily. For the first half hour, the attack of Steyn and Kyle Abbott is pinning me down, while Davey flows along to another hundred.
Graeme Smith, who has a lot of emotional support behind him, having announced that he will be retiring after this Test match, brings on Morkel. In his first over back, he bowls me four short balls in a row; the fourth hits me in the ribs.
Smith has a fine leg and deep square leg out waiting for the hook. In close, he has a short leg and a leg gully. On the off side is a third man and a deep point. Smith has arranged the field so I can’t play the hook, pull or cut without taking maximum risk.
Morkel’s next over is all short balls. I weave inside the first, duck the second, get hit on the forearm by the third, dodge the fourth, and fend the fifth away for a single. The South Africans have sensed and homed in on my uncertainty. I’m not going to play the pull or hook shots, so they feel they can attack me with impunity.
In Morkel’s next over, I stand up and block the first two balls, but the third rears up and I can’t get out of the way. It cannons off my shoulder into the side of my head. I throw my bat down and check that I’m all right. When I face up again, I glove a ball in the air, but it falls safely. He can’t keep going for long at this pace and intensity. I’m just trying to outlast him. I need to get off strike, but can’t. Luckily, balls are missing my gloves or my edge or popping past short leg.
During Morkel’s next two overs, Davey manages to get most of the strike, and then Smith takes him off, leaving me to assess the damage. Straight away, I know that my shoulder is seriously hurt. Alex Kountouris has already come on more than once, worried about my forearm, which he thinks could be broken. I see my right thumb is bleeding when I take my glove off.
Seeing the damage to my forearm and thumb, Alex says, ‘Can you even hold the bat?’
‘It’s my shoulder that’s hurting most.’
‘Your shoulder’s fine!’
‘No, my shoulder’s the problem.’
More than anything, he’s worried about a concussion from when I was hit on the jaw, or even a broken bone. He’s asking me if I know the score and so on, to see if I’m thinking straight, and I keep talking about my shoulder. It doesn’t reassure him, and he’s considering whether I ought to come off.
But I am never going to come off the field. I have to score runs. My mind is strong because I have something very clear in front of me that I want to achieve.
I play through the pain and, in the parts of my body where there is no pain, the lack of feeling and power. By the end of the day, I’ve made it to 92 and we are three for 331, a satisfying position. But there won’t be any rest for me. Until after midnight, I am with Alex in the team room at the hotel, being iced and treated. The shoulder is broken, I’m sure, and the forearm and thumb could be as well. I go to bed at about one o’clock, but three hours later I’m back in the team room and relying on more of Alex’s treatment and medication, which includes a local anaesthetic injected into my thumb so I can hold on to my bat. I doze for a little, then wake again, then doze off, able to grab only occasional moments of sleep before the team bus is ready and waiting to go back to Newlands. By then, I’m also suffering from extreme nausea due to a reaction I’ve had to some painkillers Peter Brukner has given me, and feel like throwing up constantly.
There is commentary on the toughness of this innings, because people saw me get hurt. It’s all out there in the open. But I go through pain and need treatment every single day by this stage of my career. With what I’ve been through with my back and hamstrings, getting hit by short-pitched bowling is not the worst. The pain is ever-present now; what makes this innings different is that the causes of the pain are visible to people watching.
Walking back onto Newlands the next morning, adrenalin, excitement and love of the contest do more for me than all the medication I’m taking. Needing to clear my mind for the task ahead, to do a job for the team and myself, has the effect of numbing me. I spend 25 balls on 99 before making that hundred. I get exactly what I want: a decent personal contribution to a team score that sets up the match for us. Davey backs up with a second-innings hundred, and the combined bowling effort of Mitch Johnson, Ryan Harris, James Pattinson, Shane Watson and Nathan Lyon gets us that all-important victory, and the number one ICC ranking, in the shadows of stumps on the fifth day. I can’t express how much that means to me. It’s a crowning moment, for sure.
But also, in retrospect, it’s bittersweet, because this was one of the last Test matches I played when I was still innocent, when I had no fear of dying while playing the game I love.
18
HUGHESY
It’s a Tuesday morning in November, the first day of an important Sheffield Shield round leading up to the first Test match of the summer. But instead of playing, I’m at home and my head is buzzing with irritation. All the little annoyances that have been simmering away over the past couple of years feel like they’re coming to the boil this week. Ian Chappell, when asked why he quit the Australian cricket captaincy, said he’d got fed up with all the people he wanted to tell to f— off. He had been in the job for four years. There is a long line of post-war Australian captains – Hassett, Benaud, Simpson, Lawry, the Chappells, Taylor, Waugh – who have reached their limit in this job after about four years.
I have now held the captaincy for almost four years.
I’ve come home for a shower after a rehab session at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Over the past few days I have been battling with so many people, it feels like life is one long argument. With the Cricket Australia hierarchy, I’ve been having some very tough conversations, often not fighting them so much as feeling puzzled and a bit let down by the line they’ve taken, considering how well they know me.
At issue is my fitness for the First Test in Brisbane against India, which is less than two weeks away. It goes without saying that for such a big series, the first spark in a s
ummer that builds all the way up to the World Cup in five months, I am going to do everything in my power to get on the field.
The problem seems to be that CA have decided, after ten years, that they’re going to stop trusting me to know my own body. In ten years in the Australian team, with a degenerative back complaint that I’ve had since I was a teenager, I have only missed one Test match through injury. I’ve put myself through torture to fix my back and my hamstrings, and I have always come right when I’ve declared myself fit to play.
This morning, it’s all come to a head. A month ago, during Australia’s one-day tour of Zimbabwe, I aggravated a left hamstring strain which I initially incurred in a one-day match against South Africa in Perth. Rod Marsh, as chairman of selectors, wants me to prove my fitness by playing in the Sheffield Shield round starting today, for New South Wales against South Australia at the SCG. The Cricket Australia medical staff have told Rod that there is no way I can get through a four-day game without risking re-injury. They’ve ruled me out of the Shield game.
I can totally understand that view. The risk is too great. But at the same time, I want to find a way of playing a game somewhere so that I can prove to myself that I will be fit for the Test match.
Pat Howard told the selectors a compromise could be reached. He suggested I play in a two-day match between India and an Australian XI in Adelaide, also starting this week. If I get through that, Pat told Rod, I should be considered available.
I hadn’t been consulted, and neither had the CA medical staff, when this deal was discussed. I was too busy working on my recovery. Every day, I have to travel to my physio Steve’s practice in Beecroft, in the northern suburbs of Sydney, to get onto the MedX machine. It’s horrible for Kyly. She’ll say, ‘What are we doing today?’ And I’ll reply, ‘Driving to Beecroft and back.’ I’m irritable and angry, and not fun to live with, but Kyly has the ability to stay tranquil. Eventually I calm down and say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not having a good day with my back.’ As inconvenient as it is, we both know that for the past ten years, the MedX has been the silver bullet for my back, the only regular treatment that I can rely on to get me right. There isn’t one in Adelaide.
Flying to Adelaide would not be great for my injury, but it’s the time away from the MedX machine to treat and strengthen me that could set me back.
On top of that, in Adelaide I would be facing an international attack highly motivated to take me down. One twist to avoid an Ishant Sharma bouncer, and my back could be gone – not only for the First Test, but potentially for the whole summer, which means a World Cup on home soil.
Once again, the Cricket Australia medical staff step in, saying that I’m not ready to play in Adelaide and face an international attack. What next? Alex and I come up with an alternative plan: that I stay in Sydney, get treatment on my back every day, and play in a club match for Western Suburbs this Saturday. Alex knows, and I know, that this would be a perfect testing ground for my back: facing first-grade bowlers and being close to treatment, including the MedX. If I can’t get through a club match, I can accept that I will definitely not be fit for the Test match.
Pat Howard gives me a flat no. ‘If you don’t play this game in Adelaide,’ he says, ‘you’re unavailable for the Test match.’ He’s fed up himself, having had to persuade the selectors to agree to my missing the Shield match.
‘Pat, your own medical staff have said they don’t think I’m ready to play India in Adelaide.’
‘All right then, you won’t be considered for the Test match.’
‘Won’t that look silly,’ I say, ‘because I’ll be playing in this club game on Saturday, and I might make some runs, and yet you’ll be telling the Australian public I am not available for the Test match.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Okay, let me understand,’ I say, containing my anger. ‘If I go to Adelaide, field in slips all day without touching a ball, then get out for a golden duck, you’re going to pick me for the Test match?’
‘Yes,’ Pat says.
‘But if I go out and make 100 for Western Suburbs and run around in the field all day, doing everything, even if I bowl, you will consider me unfit?’
‘Correct.’
At 33, I know my body better than anyone, except perhaps Alex. I just need Cricket Australia to follow the same procedures they have followed for the past decade, to trust that I know my body, that I’m honest with Alex, and that together we will know whether I am ready to play. They have placed that trust in me throughout my career and I have never let them down. But the people and policies are different now. They are not taking my word for it, nor Alex’s.
I make one final plea. ‘Pat,’ I say, ‘that’s not fair. I have never let my teammates down by playing in a Test match when I’m not fit. Ever since I’ve played for Australia, I have been trusted on this. I know I can play in this club match and satisfy myself whether I’m fit or not. I’ve done it for 100 Test matches. I know I can’t make it to Adelaide. But if I can stay in Sydney, I believe I can get myself right for Brisbane.’
It falls on deaf ears. The upshot? Cricket Australia ban me from playing club cricket even though their own physio has told them I was 100 per cent fit to play for Wests. So I will not be considered for the Test match.
None of it has been making sense, and I’m fuming. Word has leaked out to the press, and some of the cricket journalists are writing that James Sutherland, the chief executive of Cricket Australia, and other powerbrokers are running out of patience with me. The feeling is mutual.
I’ve been down to Moore Park this morning to do running drills with Duncan Kerr, my personal trainer. While I was there, one bright spot gave me a momentary lift. As we crossed the road and walked past the SCG, we peeked through to the Sheffield Shield game, which had started. South Australia were batting, and Hughesy was opening. If there’s going to be one silver lining to all of this, it might be that Hughesy gets my Test place.
As we look through the gate, I see that he is into the twenties. Perfect! I’ll go home for a shower and change, then come back to watch him bat. I know he’s in for a big one. He loves punishing his old Blues teammates. He’ll make a hundred and the selectors will have to pick him.
I finish off with Duncan, and it’s only a ten-minute drive home. I have a shower and plan to go back to the SCG for the after-lunch session.
When I get out of the shower, there are five missed calls on my phone. Strange. A couple of them are from Malcolm Conn, at Cricket NSW. Malcolm and I go a long way back. When he was chief cricket writer for The Australian and then The Daily Telegraph, we would be blueing one minute about something he’d written, and the next minute we would be collaborating, with him ghost-writing my columns for the paper. It typifies the up-and-down relationship I’ve had with the media through my entire career. Malcolm is a very straight-shooting type, however, and we were always able to bounce back from our disagreements quickly. He has now moved from journalism to our side of the fence, as a communications officer for Cricket NSW and Cricket Australia.
I’m moving around my bedroom getting my things ready to go. ‘What’s going on?’ I ask Mal.
His voice is flat. ‘Have you heard about Hughesy?’
‘What?’ I laugh. ‘Has he got a hundred already?’
‘He’s been hit on the head and a helicopter’s about to land on the SCG.’
I stop moving. I’m almost too shocked to speak. ‘Is he all right?’
‘We don’t know.’
Everything else empties out of me. All the arguments that have been spinning around my head for days and weeks, everything that has been driving me crazy and putting the cricket world into a lather – it’s all gone. There’s nothing in me except one thought: Hughesy.
I must run every red light between home and the inner city. I’m going like a race car driver. My heart is in the pit of my stomach, set off by the word Helicopter. What did Mal say? A helicopter’s about to land on the SCG? It sounds bad. I don’t le
t my thoughts go any further than that. Hughesy.
In the car, I speak to Dave Thompson, the Cricket NSW operations manager.
‘He’s not at the SCG,’ he says.
‘Where’s he been taken?’
‘He’s been put in an ambulance and is going to St Vincent’s Hospital.’
I change direction and whiz to St Vincent’s, which is only a few minutes from the SCG. Out of my mind, I park in the ambulance area and run into emergency. Tim Nielsen, my old Cricket Australia coach who’s now South Australia’s head of high performance, and some other SA Cricket people are there.
‘Where is he?’ I say to Tim.
Before he can reply, a member of the hospital staff grabs me. ‘He’s been taken for a CT scan. Come through, his family’s in here.’
As I’m being taken to the room where they are waiting, Hughesy is being wheeled past on a trolley. He looks normal. There’s still a sheen of sweat on his face, and his hand, when I hold it, is hot. He has a scratch on his face from where he fell forward onto the pitch. I notice a little bit of facial swelling, but not much. My first thought is, He’ll be right.
Hughesy’s mum Virginia, his brother Jason and his sister Megan are all in tears. When I come into the room, they get up and we’re just hugging and crying for a long time. Virginia’s asking me a lot of questions about what happens next. I don’t have a clue. All I can say is, ‘He’s in the best hands.’ They begin explaining the shot Hughesy was playing when he was hit. New South Wales were bowling short to stop Hughesy scoring. He went to hook a bouncer but got through his shot too early. The ball hit him in the back of his head or the top of his neck, just beneath the rim of his helmet. He was 63 not out.
My Story Page 25