Mr Cricket by Michael Hussey Read Free Book Online

other people that he was a very good 100- and 200-metre sprinter and probably undersells himself a little when he reminisces.
    He also had a particular fascination with coaching and the art of motivation. Over many years of involvement in sport, he coached soccer, my mum’s netball team, athletics and, eventually, cricket and was a player-coach in basketball. He became interested in the preparation of players and later, finally accepting of the fact his boys were nuts about cricket, he became very interested in how to prepare players for cricket and he applied his athletics background to it. He thought cricket was very much a game of balance and learning to run correctly and he spent many hours teaching us to do those things well.
    Dad applied that work ethic away from sport too. He was employed at the post office for many years and, later, went into public relations for the public transport authority, TransPerth. He was an only child who had come from a modest background, growing up around Mount Hawthorn, a working-class suburb of Perth. Like most Aussie battlers, he grew up well aware of the distinction between time for leisure and time for work. When it was time for work, he would really knuckle down and bring out that raspy Australian voice that I still have ringing in my ears. ‘If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly!’ was one of his favourite sayings.
    The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand and the determination that whether we win, lose or draw, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.
    Dad showed us the sporting qualities we needed. My mum, Helen, meanwhile, taught me some other very valuable lessons that I believe went a long way to preparing me to represent Australia. Mum was mostly relaxed around us when it came to sport. ‘Go out and play. Have a good time,’ she’d say, shooing us away. But around the house it was a different story. In that setting she was very much the disciplinarian. When it came time to do housework or schoolwork she was very strict and ensured that we did those tasks thoroughly. Being kids, we always tried to stretch the boundaries to see what we could get away with. But if we pushed it too far, Mum would get very angry.
    One particular bee in her bonnet was bad manners. Mum insisted that Dave, my sisters Kate, Gemma and I presented well and come across as well-rounded individuals. That meant dressing appropriately, speaking well, being polite and having good manners – especially while eating. If we didn’t do those things well she would come down on us in a big way.
    Probably the best way to explain what I mean here is to use the example of peas. Yes, peas. Now, everyone knows how tricky it is to eat peas. Once you’ve managed to get a few on your fork, you have to somehow get the fork from plate to mouth without them falling off. All Dave and I wanted to do was shove food into our mouths as quickly as possible but Mum was quite insistent on the proper way to do it. ‘You have to push the peas to the back of your fork and lift them to your mouth slowly,’ she would say. Dave and I would roll our eyes.
    Big Merv Hughes must have been playing for Australia around that time and, with us being cricket mad, Mum thought she could relay her point better by dropping the name of one of our heroes: ‘Could you imagine playing Test cricket with Merv Hughes, sitting at the lunch table and eating your peas like that?’ Having gotten to know Merv since then, I think Mum could probably have used a better example, but she got the point across.
    So manners and presentation were under control from an early age. But sport was our driving force. While cricket was our obsession each summer, in winter we both loved Australian Rules football. The backyard would be transformed from Lords to Subiaco Oval. If we weren’t playing in the backyard, we’d be at the local park.
    Dad thought it was