Bucking the Trend Read online

  As it was, those Australians whitewashed England 5–0 in the return bout in 2006–07, which coincided with Chris’ breakout Shield season. He racked up 1202 runs for Western Australia in addition to a mighty back end of the 2006 English summer for another new club, Northamptonshire. Langer retired at the end of the series, and Chris was now in competition for his spot with another left-hander who had first made his name in England: Phil Jaques. Initially a fringe player in the difficult New South Wales school, Jaques had risen to prominence with prolific scoring for Northamptonshire in 2003 and 2004. By 2004–05 he was a fixture in the NSW side and, helped by a similarly strong record in limited-overs matches, an occasional ODI player for Australia. That avenue meant he was able to get into ‘the system’, familiar to teammates and selectors, and on his way to Test selection as an injury replacement for Langer on Boxing Day 2005 against South Africa.

  Jaques was well liked in the Australian dressing room – a nickname of ‘Pro’ sums up his reputation – and also happened to be a couple of years younger than Chris. Over the period leading into and away from Langer’s retirement, from 2005 to 2008, Jaques made 22 first-class centuries, including his first for Australia. In the same period, Chris notched 13, and none when he and Jaques figured in the same game, either for Australia A or when WA took on NSW.

  When Langer retired at the end of that triumphant 2006–07 Ashes series, Jaques got the nod. Jaques’ admirable scoring was accompanied by another more hidden narrative – the creeping advance of back trouble that was to cut him down in what should have been his prime. By the time he went to the West Indies in mid-2008 and made his second Test hundred in Jamaica, he was often struggling to move. A break after that series helped, but the trip to India for four Tests in September and October put more pressure on, and this time Jaques was rendered just about immobile, resorting to 5am physio sessions to limber up and a punishing cycle of anti-inflammatory drugs that can be as bad for the lining of the stomach as they are useful to alleviate back pain.

  But rather than have Chris on the West Indies or India tours as a back-up batsman, Andrew Hilditch’s panel had elected to choose Simon Katich, Chris’s former teammate, who had been a casualty of the 2005 Ashes defeat, but had fought his way back into contention. In the end, it was Matthew Hayden’s stretched hamstring that opened a vacancy in the Test team for the third Test against India, at the WACA in January 2008 – a vacancy that Chris was to fill.

  A TEST MATCH debut should be an experience to cherish. But in my case it was the catalyst for a lot of reflection, and ultimately the end of my time in Western Australia. In fact it’s fair to say that the high of receiving my Baggy Green cap almost immediately turned into perhaps the lowest I had felt as a cricketer barely a week later.

  By January 2008 I was fit and firing, and when the Australian side ventured to Perth for the third Test against India it was time for injury to smile on me instead. Matthew Hayden was struggling with a hamstring issue and I was called into the squad, initially as cover. As soon as I walked into the change room I could tell the players had plenty of things on their minds. The dramatic win over India in Sydney in the second Test had caused all kinds of spot fires to break out: the racial abuse charge against Harbhajan Singh for what he said to Andrew Symonds, another sledging case involving Brad Hogg and Sourav Ganguly and the general tone of the Australian team’s behaviour. We didn’t actually have a team meeting before the match that addressed the cricket itself.

  Instead I was a wide-eyed participant in a mini-conference that tackled issues around the image of the team and the way many, columnist Peter Roebuck above all, had portrayed them. I remember seeing the likes of the ACB director and former captain Mark Taylor and the Australian Cricketers’ Association boss Paul Marsh in the room, and most of the players putting across the view that they didn’t feel they were being backed by Cricket Australia. But to be honest a lot of the discussion went way over my head. The dominant emotion was a sense of ‘what am I doing here’, as I was still battling somewhat with doubts over my own ability. The topics we went over felt like they had little to do with me, and as a new face in the team the last thing I was thinking about was how I was going to sledge the Indians! So while the team was preoccupied by ‘Monkeygate’, I was preoccupied by nerves.

  More vivid in my memory is the fielding session preceding the match, the first time I’d been part of an Australian team preparing with the high intensity they were famed for. There can be no doubting of Ricky Ponting’s leadership in this sense, for he threw himself around with a manic level of energy the others did their best to emulate. If off-field issues were affecting the team’s focus, they did their best to put it out of the picture while chasing high balls and ground balls on the WACA outfield, and when India won the toss and chose to bat on match morning I knew I had to be up for that.

  The wicket for the game was a strange one, fairly flat and very slow but offering some swing and seam as well. Australia’s team selection clearly anticipated a different surface, as Shaun Tait joined Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Mitchell Johnson in an all-pace attack. Shaun had a hamstring niggle and his rhythm was all over the place as India’s score mounted. Off the field he didn’t give much away about his state of mind, but the struggles we saw in his run-up, no-balls and general control compounded, so much so that after the match he took a break from the game. I spent a lot of a sweltering afternoon chasing balls to the point and cover boundaries, and left the field at stumps feeling very drained.

  Amid all the adrenaline of a Test debut I hadn’t noticed that my Baggy Green cap did not actually fit me very well. It was much too tight, and when I pulled it on before play on the second morning, I instantly felt a horrible throbbing headache. This wasn’t the first time I’d struggled to find a cap the right size, and I knew from experience it was possible to stretch the head band with strategic use of scissors. Whether it was nerves or the headache, I did not get it right this time, and the attempt to stretch the cap left it badly ripped and just about in pieces. Whoops!

  Phil Jaques was now my opening partner and the nearest bloke to me in the dressing room. At the sight of my ruined Baggy Green, he offered a somewhat terrified whisper: ‘What have you done?’ Next thing I knew, Adam Gilchrist had wandered over and let out a massive laugh at this sad sight. I was the new kid, I’d just wrecked my cap, and at a time when the Baggy Green aura was still strong I wondered briefly whether this was a sackable offence. Fortunately Adam’s reaction was shared by others, and I was swiftly told ‘don’t worry, we’ll get you another one’. ‘Hoggy’ was 12th man, so I wore his cap until a new one could be found. Disaster averted, I walked onto the field with the team, and heard a spectator yell ‘I bet you slept in that cap last night!’ Little did he know that my cap was in pieces in the rooms…

  For a few years of course, I doubted I’d ever wear the cap again. I’ve spoken to a few guys who only played one Test, the umpire Paul Wilson being one, about the mixed feeling that brings. While it’s fantastic to have the cap, because it looks so new and untouched it is almost as if you haven’t earned it – a feeling of ‘did I really wear that’ can set in. For the next six years I didn’t have the cap on any sort of display, putting it in the cupboard and trying not to think about it. This was mainly because when I did see it I could catch myself thinking ‘I haven’t earned that’. One of the more cathartic elements of getting another chance and going on to play 25 Tests was the fact that the cap now looks a little more battered and lived in, with beer and sweat stains telling me the story of those matches.

  A bit like the rest of the game, my first Test innings was something of a blur. I got off the mark with a boundary, but was then struck on the pad by an Irfan Pathan delivery heading in the general direction of leg stump. Asad Rauf’s finger went up and I found myself trudging off for that lone boundary. Hawkeye projections on TV in the dressing room seemed to suggest it was hitting, but after we’d been bowled out cheaply I found myself standing next to Asad at square l
eg.

  ‘I shouldn’t have given you out,’ he said.

  ‘But the replays showed it was hitting,’ I replied.

  ‘I’m not sure those things are always right.’

  Not exactly what I wanted to hear.

  Out or not, I spent some time thinking about the dismissal and decided I had fallen across to the off side. Once India were bowled out, we found ourselves in a difficult fourth-innings chase, and I got pretty smartly to 15, making sure I didn’t get too far across. But then, just as I felt I was getting in, I got near enough to the perfect ball from Pathan. Angled in, then shaping away and on just the right length and line. On another day you play and miss, but this time I edged one through to MS Dhoni and my match was over.

  We failed in our chase. Ricky Ponting had missed the chance to lead the team to a record 17 successive wins, and it was the first Test loss in Perth to a subcontinental side. The guys who played in that match will be first to admit the Australian side had been distracted that week I’d imagine, and it showed in the performance.

  At the time I had wanted to keep the experience as similar to a Sheffield Shield match as possible, so I declined the offer to stay at the team hotel and remained at home: a big mistake, but one I made as Adam Gilchrist and Brad Hogg were both staying at home and I assumed this is what home state players did. It was a huge opportunity missed to get to know my Aussie teammates better and for them to know me – this is absolutely crucial for new players and I regret it.

  I left that environment not really feeling as though I knew it any better than before. A sense of disconnection and unease lasted all the way through the week, and once the game was over and the caravan moved on I was left with a sense that it didn’t quite seem real to me.

  After the game, Mike Hussey told me that people who thought first-class cricket was as hard as Tests had rocks in their head, and I was inclined to agree. There’s so much more going on beyond the boundary, meaning you need to be so much more focused when you do get out there.

  You work so hard to get there, to fulfil your dream, and you find yourself there for a fleeting moment. If you’re then discarded, at the age of 30, and the circus goes on, you are left thinking, ‘Oh well, that was it, I’ll never get another chance, or if I do I have to start again from square one.’ Everything that had been achieved up until that point and the countless hours put in felt like it was erased in a heartbeat. There’s a heaviness about that feeling; it settles on you and takes some serious shaking off. In the meantime you lose perspective about how lucky you are to be playing cricket for a living, because essentially you feel like a failure. That doesn’t just apply to you, but also to all the people – family, friends, teammates and coaches – who supported you to get there. That was how I found myself after making my Test debut.

  Then it got worse.

  The Test match finished with India’s victory on the Sunday afternoon, and the team went out together for drinks that night. Next morning I awoke to the news that I had been dropped from Western Australia’s one-day side, meaning I was only required for squad training but not the sessions for the selected side. In the space of a week I had gone from playing Test cricket to not even being in the state squad to train for a domestic match.

  By this stage I was not on great terms with either Tom Moody, who was now the coach, or Graeme Wood, now the chief executive. That was it – I was leaving Western Australia.

  The Warriors played the one-day game on the Friday and Saturday I had a club game for South Perth at Joondalup. That day I woke up around the time the guys would have been doing warm-ups, got my gear together, drove out to the ground and arrived just as the first ball was being bowled – thoroughly depressed at the whole state of affairs.

  The captain, Darren Wates, took one look at me and said, ‘Mate you’re batting No.7, go and take care of yourself and be ready for later in the day.’ So I went to sit in the change room, feeling shaky and miserable and not really sure where I was at. After a few minutes passed I started to become very emotional, and called for my Dad to come see me. Looking back it was amazing to think I hit rock bottom only a week after my Test debut, but it summed up the fine edge on which I had been performing in the harsh environment of WA cricket.

  Not long after that, South Perth had slipped to 5–70, and I went out to bat 15 minutes before lunch. Initially my thoughts were so clouded I could barely see the ball, and reverted to the most basic technique, covering my stumps, letting wide ones go and almost playing a sort of French cricket. After the interval I felt better for a meal and a moment to think, and went back out in a much better frame of mind. By day’s end I had made 170-odd, and followed up with another hundred in the semi-final of the district one-day competition. We would win the title, after the club coach decided not to suspend me for my late arrival. The runs I made were another example of being able to play hard and work hard, but I had reached a point where I needed to move on. It was all too much.

  STARTING OUT IN WA cricket, I had been given a hard time by the likes of Kade Harvey, Rob Baker and Ryan Campbell, not to mention the big boys. They ended up becoming huge supporters of me and we still keep in touch now. But at the time they made life difficult. I remember Harvey sledging me in a club game, saying ‘you’ve got a fucking long way to go in life mate’, and Campbell was tough on me too. This was all a product of the competitiveness for spots – at the time, trying to break into the WA side seemed almost as hard as breaking into the Australian sides led by Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh. Playing cricket was one thing, but it also meant fitting in as a young man.

  Damien Martyn, Justin Langer, Brendon Julian, Tom Moody – they were all big fish. Everyone knew who they were. Whereas I was a ginger kid who just wasn’t cool. I lacked confidence around women, I was verging on socially inept, and had to grow up, much as Harvey had said to me. My best chance to find my niche was to earn respect through performance on the field, and I had begun to do it in the summer of 2001–02. This elevation in status was both good and bad for me.

  We had played a one-day game in Adelaide where I roomed with Justin Langer for the first time. The game was on the Sunday and we arrived on the Friday. As was customary, we got there and went out drinking that night, before sweating it off at training the next day, having a quiet night in, playing the game and then going out again. Next we flew to Coffs Harbour to play a full-strength New South Wales and I roomed with Langer again. The pattern was the same – big night out, training, game day, another night out.

  The first night in Coffs we were at a bar and I told the guys around 8pm ‘I’m rooming with Justin, I better go home’. Harvey’s response was to say, ‘Mate, are you having a good time?’ When I replied in the affirmative he declared, ‘Well stay then, enjoy yourself.’ This was the sort of validation and inclusion I’d been hoping for, really the first time I had felt a respected part of the team. I mentioned going home again around 10pm, and was told ‘No you’re staying!’ So 10pm became 11, then 12, then 1. Finally I crept back into the room, trying to keep quiet but understandably feeling the effects of the drinks. Trying to go to the bathroom, I walked noisily into the cupboard. Justin didn’t say a word, but must have heard me, as I discovered later.

  When the game came around, we thrashed this strong Blues side and earned a double bonus point by chasing down a modest target inside 25 overs. Amid our celebrations afterwards, Justin asked the support staff to leave the dressing room, and proceeded to go to town on us in no uncertain terms. We were called a disgrace, always out on the gas, the reason WA cricket had stopped winning trophies, the works. I’ll always remember he then exclaimed ‘I’m not going to name names, but Buck! I’ve roomed with you for five nights, you’ve been pissed for three, what are you doing?’ I look back now and remember the message, because I use it myself when dealing with younger players.

  At the time I was enjoying this new social dynamic but also scoring runs. The lifestyle did not impede my performance. And because the big runs were coming I felt
I was bulletproof. But unbeknown to me I was really giving off the wrong message to lots of people above me. What I’ve learnt and try to tell the young guys these days, is if you need to let off steam to succeed go and do it, but you have to pick your moments, and you have to put your career ahead of your social life. What was clear to me was I had to have the right balance for me and that was enjoying the lifestyle cricket offered. I loved doing everything with maximum intensity mixed in with times where I could completely switch off. There was no middle ground – fifth gear or stop. That would mean training, playing, interacting with others before heading home and shutting down.

  As it was, the problem was I suffered from a lack of forward thinking, and a lack of self-belief that I would actually get my chance to play for Australia. Even at times when I was scoring as prolifically as anyone in the country, I did not think about much other than those runs. Plus I was enjoying playing for WA and being successful professionally for the first time.

  However the message being sent down the line was that while I could make runs, I was lacking focus and my heart wasn’t completely on representing the national side – which I vehemently disagree with. I just didn’t see how that sort of approach would help me and in fact I firmly believe it would have ruined any chance of higher selection.