Speaker 1: Ordinarily speaking, I've always been a cricket nuf yet heart
Speaker 1: for the first time my career, why did he want
Speaker 1: to be anywhere near a cricket fields on time?
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Ordinarily speaking, I'm narrowly meadows. My
Speaker 2: guest this episode is Australian cricketer Glenn Maxwell. At thirty one,
Speaker 2: Glenn has played seven Tests, one hundred and ten one
Speaker 2: days and sixty one to twenty internationals. He is an entertainer,
Speaker 2: but in twenty nineteen Glenn took a break from the
Speaker 2: game to work on his mental health. In this episode,
Speaker 2: he details how he got into such a dark place
Speaker 2: and how he emerged from it. We caught up at
Speaker 2: his place in Melbourne as he prepared to return from
Speaker 2: lay surgery. Please remember, if this chat triggers something for you,
Speaker 2: there is help out there. Beyond Blue and Lifeline are
Speaker 2: just a couple of places you can go. I hope
Speaker 2: you enjoyed the chat well, Maxie, thanks for spending some
Speaker 2: time with me. You recently got engaged. This is a
Speaker 2: very girly way for me to start this podcast. How
Speaker 2: did you pop the question?
Speaker 1: Awkwardly? As most engagements go. I'd been planning it for
Speaker 1: quite a while. I contacted her sister and she helped
Speaker 1: me out with the ring and then design for everything,
Speaker 1: and then sort of started to get the wheels in motion,
Speaker 1: and so that was probably midway through last year, and
Speaker 1: all the plane that went into that was great. Finally
Speaker 1: got the ring back I think early feb or late
Speaker 1: late Jan and just thought, yep, no worries is that
Speaker 1: we're going to do it. And unfortunately I ended up
Speaker 1: having surgery on the day that I was going to propose,
Speaker 1: so that sort of put it back in another week
Speaker 1: or so. She knew that I was going to propose
Speaker 1: at some stage, but I told her I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to propose while I had to sling on, so that
Speaker 1: sort of like sort of pushed her hopes back a bit.
Speaker 1: And then I got the sling off, She's like, ah,
Speaker 1: she'd be coming, so I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'll wait for my arm. I need to be straight
Speaker 1: armed again, basically blatantly lied to her, just said just so.
Speaker 1: She didn't think it was coming. So she got so
Speaker 1: a bit downhearted, and we went out to Port Melbourne
Speaker 1: and I had a few ideas of what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do. Had the ring in my pocket the whole day,
Speaker 1: and we went for a walk and just everything just
Speaker 1: felt so wrong. I was so camfident my head, so
Speaker 1: calm in my head with what I was going to do,
Speaker 1: and then it all, it all went to shit. Basically,
Speaker 1: I ended up saying I will just go to get
Speaker 1: to lunch then, and I sat there at lunch thinking
Speaker 1: about different ways I could do it, just staring at her,
Speaker 1: and then I started to get close again, and then
Speaker 1: she said like, oh, I've got to go move my car,
Speaker 1: and then she went off and moved her car. And
Speaker 1: I was sitting there panicking for the next fifteen to
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. But what am I actually going to do?
Speaker 1: Because this thing's booing a whole through my pocket At
Speaker 1: the moment.
Speaker 2: You're a sweaty bollock.
Speaker 1: At the best of time, I was shocking. I made
Speaker 1: I can't remember. I think I wore a black T shirt.
Speaker 1: Thank god. If it was grave, my god, it just
Speaker 1: would have been like completely just a sweet patch, just
Speaker 1: one giant sweet patch.
Speaker 2: This is a nice image for every Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 1: Then I drove we drove to this another location. As
Speaker 1: we drove past, I saw this park that was was
Speaker 1: really it was really pretty. It was like rose Garden,
Speaker 1: really nice. I thought, that's Plan D if I ever
Speaker 1: get to that stage, and then obviously Planned C failed
Speaker 1: and as I got out of the car at the
Speaker 1: next location, wil Pekowski drives past honk and his horn waving,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, that's that's ruin and planning sea.
Speaker 1: So I was like rattled at that stage and then
Speaker 1: to Plan D and she's like, oh, if you need
Speaker 1: a coffee, we'll just go back to your back home
Speaker 1: and I'll meet you there. And I was like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, we go on to this next place, and
Speaker 1: I pinpointed exactly where I wanted to do it when
Speaker 1: she turned up, so I was trying to put the
Speaker 1: ring back in the box, so I raced off. Realized
Speaker 1: that schools got out as well, so there's kids everywhere.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is a nightmare. This is
Speaker 1: just going so badly. And she drove past as I
Speaker 1: was trying to put the ring back in the box,
Speaker 1: didn't see me, and so I'm like ducking back into
Speaker 1: my car trying to like get ready and shut my
Speaker 1: door and ran to the middle of the park, hid
Speaker 1: behind a tree. Would it looked like a real creep
Speaker 1: in a park and like watching all these people sort
Speaker 1: of like, just as long as everyone moves away from
Speaker 1: the center, I should be fine. And they were sort
Speaker 1: of just like slowly walking past their dogs and kids
Speaker 1: walking around. And then I saw appeared around the corner
Speaker 1: and Vinnie started to walk the wrong direction, and I
Speaker 1: felt like I pinpointed on Google Maps exactly where I
Speaker 1: wanted her to meet me as well, So I was
Speaker 1: a bit annoyed and then told her to come back
Speaker 1: the other way, and she's like, I don't see a
Speaker 1: cafe anywhere here, and I was like, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: I was sure there was one here, and I sort
Speaker 1: of pointed away and so there might be one over there,
Speaker 1: and she turned around and I just got straight down
Speaker 1: on one knee. But as I got down, she still
Speaker 1: had my had her phone in her hand and she
Speaker 1: must have painted and clicked a button and she started
Speaker 1: calling me. So my own my pocket's vibrating like mad like,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting there with a ring in my hand
Speaker 1: shaking anyway, and she's she started crying, and I'm like
Speaker 1: I'm not taking this phone call, but like what is
Speaker 1: going on here? And then like she left. She ended
Speaker 1: up leaving like a seven minute voicemail and it was
Speaker 1: the whole engagement chat. That's so cool. So we've still
Speaker 1: got I've still got on my phone, so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: We've still got that memory. And I sent it to her.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not sure if you know this, but
Speaker 1: I've still got the whole chat that we had afterwards,
Speaker 1: what we're going to do and like talk to her
Speaker 1: parents and all that sort of stuff, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was pretty cool in the end, and
Speaker 1: I certainly caught her off guard.
Speaker 2: You're smiling with your whole face right now, that whole memory.
Speaker 2: It's pretty special.
Speaker 1: It's the worst thing a guy can do because it's
Speaker 1: it should be so easy. You know, they're going to
Speaker 1: say yes, like everything should be so simple, but it's
Speaker 1: just so difficult to actually finally just like drop down
Speaker 1: to a knee and hand them something that you've had
Speaker 1: for a while and just to put it on their finger.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know, it's such a difficult thing
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: What's more nerve wracking a World Cup final in front
Speaker 2: of her packed house or getting down on one.
Speaker 1: Getting down on one knee, I can do cricket. That's
Speaker 1: fine in front of crowds and all that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: but my god, dropping down on one knee, that was
Speaker 1: so hard, Like just knowing that she'd be watching me
Speaker 1: go down. But I was like, Noah, no, your team around,
Speaker 1: I'll just be here when you turn back.
Speaker 2: I love it now. She's been super important to you
Speaker 2: in particularly the last twelve months, in what's been a
Speaker 2: bit of a challenging twelve months for you. Tell me
Speaker 2: about her role that she played in you coming out
Speaker 2: publicly and admitting that you needed a bit of help.
Speaker 1: She was there for me in England last year. She
Speaker 1: came away with me on a couple of tours and
Speaker 1: she's I suppose seeing the ups and downs. I think
Speaker 1: the first time she probably noticed that I wasn't myself
Speaker 1: as in the Marsh Cup at the start of the summer,
Speaker 1: I was over in Perth and I just got back
Speaker 1: from a long tour away from home, still hadn't been home.
Speaker 1: I think that was I think I was up to
Speaker 1: about eight months at that stage away from home and
Speaker 1: I was just cooked. I was just I was tired,
Speaker 1: and I was about to go into another series and
Speaker 1: in my mind I sort of had. I was still
Speaker 1: thinking about cricket. I was still thinking about what technique
Speaker 1: I was sort of going to try and start this
Speaker 1: summer and try and get better. I was already thinking
Speaker 1: about how I was going to get better and where
Speaker 1: I was going to be at the end of the summer,
Speaker 1: and my mom was just racing. I was thinking so
Speaker 1: far ahead, and I just completely forgot about what I
Speaker 1: was doing at the moment. She knew that straight away.
Speaker 1: And I think when we got back to Melbourne, I
Speaker 1: was sort of finally able to see some family. I
Speaker 1: was still wasn't really my energetic, bubbly self. I wasn't
Speaker 1: sort of, I suppose outwardly starting conversation with everyone. I
Speaker 1: wasn't sort of. I wasn't happy basically, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: something I noticed. I just thought, I'm just tired. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those things. It's I'm just a bit
Speaker 1: run now, I'll be fine, and sort of pushed through.
Speaker 1: And once I got picked for the Australia team for
Speaker 1: the T twenties at the start of the summer, I
Speaker 1: think it was in November or late late October November,
Speaker 1: and I just remember going to those first few meetings
Speaker 1: and I I just felt this overwhelming anxiety just fall
Speaker 1: across me, and just like they're asking for professionalism, they're
Speaker 1: asking for one hundred percent commitment, and they're asking for
Speaker 1: all this, and I just I just instantly felt like
Speaker 1: the weight of the world just form. I'd just like thinking,
Speaker 1: I just I'm not sure I can give them one
Speaker 1: hundred percent right now. I just I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: operating at maybe sixty seventy percent at best. I wasn't
Speaker 1: turning up to training for the Vix or anyone before that,
Speaker 1: thinking Oh, today is the day I'm going to try
Speaker 1: and get better. I was just thinking, how do I
Speaker 1: get through today? So I'm ready to at least play
Speaker 1: it eighty percent for the game. And I suppose all
Speaker 1: the words that we used during the team meetings, I
Speaker 1: was just I was so anxious, scared, worried about that
Speaker 1: first conversation I was actually going to have with someone
Speaker 1: about it. And after speaking to Vinnie, she said, You've
Speaker 1: got You've got to tell someone you can't play cricket
Speaker 1: like this. You can't keep going like this. Otherwise is
Speaker 1: going to be pretty quick, quick down with Spiral and
Speaker 1: before you know it, you'll be done. So she flew
Speaker 1: over to Adelaide. I got a hold of Michael Lloyd,
Speaker 1: the team psych, and it was probably it was probably
Speaker 1: a little, a little floating comment that Jail made during
Speaker 1: training that probably ignored the conversations. I was going to
Speaker 1: talk to the psych anyway, and I was just I
Speaker 1: was batting the nets and he's like, oh, how are
Speaker 1: you going? And I said, oh, not great. He goes,
Speaker 1: how are we going to get you too? Great for
Speaker 1: the series, And in typical, like brash, pointless reply, I said,
Speaker 1: because it's T twenty and I'm a gun. So I
Speaker 1: was just like I did, and he just laughed. I
Speaker 1: just tried to sort of exude some sort of confidence
Speaker 1: because it was it wasn't it wasn't like arrogance. It
Speaker 1: was just like I need to sort of try and
Speaker 1: keep JL off my back for a little bit, just
Speaker 1: so I can make him laugh, and like that would
Speaker 1: be funny and typical Maxie. Typical Maxie. He's just he's
Speaker 1: just up with it. He's just getting ready, no worries,
Speaker 1: that's fine. And then yeah, I went into the nets,
Speaker 1: had had a pretty good net and got out and
Speaker 1: he came back up to me afterwards create to him,
Speaker 1: and he he said, look, mate, hey you He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm struggling a little bit. He goes, I'll make sure
Speaker 1: you see Loydi and I said, yeah, it's I've already
Speaker 1: organized it. So and then I caught up with Lloydi
Speaker 1: that night and had a really good chat with him
Speaker 1: and just sort of said, look, I'm cooked. I don't
Speaker 1: think I can give one hundred percent to this team
Speaker 1: at the moment. And it's it's it's actually scaring me
Speaker 1: a little bit, like I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 1: what's happened. I don't I don't know how I feel.
Speaker 1: But I'm not getting any joy out of it anything.
Speaker 1: I played golf the other day, which is normally I
Speaker 1: escape from cricket, and it'small normally the thing that sort
Speaker 1: of gives me that time away from the game. I
Speaker 1: just found myself angry the whole time. I just I
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy it. I got home, I didn't show any
Speaker 1: emotion at all during the game, and I came back
Speaker 1: to the hotel and I just went that sucked. I
Speaker 1: just hated it. And so all the things that I
Speaker 1: found that I enjoyed just disappeared like it was it
Speaker 1: was shocking. Everything I did I just didn't enjoy, and
Speaker 1: I got angry at weird times as well, Like it
Speaker 1: was like the littlest scene would tick me off. The
Speaker 1: biggest thing I wouldn't worry about, and things that should
Speaker 1: make you laugh. I just was I was dead panning.
Speaker 1: I was just giving nothing to it. So my emotions
Speaker 1: were all out of whack. And yeah, I suppose once
Speaker 1: I had that chat with Lloydy, he sort of started
Speaker 1: talking me through the options and he goes, oh, do
Speaker 1: you reckon? You can play tomorrow? I said, I reckon,
Speaker 1: I can get through tomorrow. Let's try, and let's try
Speaker 1: and keep his hidden until we get back to Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Then I can sort of fizzle off into the distance
Speaker 1: and I'm okay, I reckon, they get through these two games,
Speaker 1: and then once we get to Melbourne, hopefully hopefully we're
Speaker 1: there two in your up or if we're still in
Speaker 1: the series, I can play Melbourne then just go home
Speaker 1: and and just be away for a while. And the
Speaker 1: original plan I suppose was to just see how I
Speaker 1: go for a couple of weeks, and once once I
Speaker 1: got through that first game, I remember speaking of Vine
Speaker 1: about so that just felt so weird. I battered so
Speaker 1: well in that game. I got sixty odd I think
Speaker 1: not less than thirty and barely missed the middle of
Speaker 1: the whole time. Just had a day out with the bat.
Speaker 1: But I didn't really enjoy any of it, Like it
Speaker 1: was just the weirdest feeling, like you're taking down an
Speaker 1: international attack and just not enjoying one bit of it.
Speaker 1: The only joy I really got was when Davy Grease hundred.
Speaker 1: It was it was like, well, that's awesome. But everything
Speaker 1: else in that game, I just barely batter than Nihilid.
Speaker 1: And I was probably lucky to be on the mic.
Speaker 1: I think in the field that day that it actually
Speaker 1: distracted me a little bit. I was actually able to
Speaker 1: think about other people and so distract myself a little
Speaker 1: bit talk to someone else while I was sort of
Speaker 1: going about my business out there. But sometimes when you're
Speaker 1: not on the mic, you just get lost in the field,
Speaker 1: and I found that was happening a lot in those
Speaker 1: games before the T twenty series. I was I was
Speaker 1: just off for the fairies in the field and just
Speaker 1: so distracted about what happens in the next game, What's
Speaker 1: going to happen, Like in the future, what's going to
Speaker 1: happen here? And I was just so far erased from
Speaker 1: the common day like of that moment. I was just
Speaker 1: so far away from it. And I think once we
Speaker 1: got to Brisbane that they were really good. They kept
Speaker 1: checking up on me to see how it was going,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know, I know it's either
Speaker 1: one or two more games. I'm okay, It's not like
Speaker 1: I'm thinking too far ahead. I'm just thinking I've got
Speaker 1: to get through these couple of games. And it actually
Speaker 1: sort of calred me down a little bit. It was
Speaker 1: it was a relief knowing that I only had to
Speaker 1: get through another one or two games, and I didn't
Speaker 1: have to bat in that game, didn't have to do
Speaker 1: a whole lot in the field, and it was just
Speaker 1: quite an easy game to sort of cruise by. And
Speaker 1: then they came to me straight at the game and said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna now I tune it up when we get
Speaker 1: back to Melbourne. You can just go. And I was like,
Speaker 1: that would be great, thanks very much. I'd appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And I had to Did you feel relieved in that moment?
Speaker 1: One hundred percent? I felt like everything was just gone
Speaker 1: and I'd been thinking about during the game, like once
Speaker 1: we sort of had it one, I was like, I
Speaker 1: wonder if I can stopped now, like the paint can
Speaker 1: finally just stop. And then I specifically remember after the
Speaker 1: game when they when we talked about it and I
Speaker 1: was about to announce it to the group and they
Speaker 1: had no idea what was going on. I didn't even
Speaker 1: tell I didn't tell Finchy. I didn't tell any of
Speaker 1: the boys. I didn't want them to be distracted about
Speaker 1: what was going on with me.
Speaker 2: And so Finchy is the captain but also your best mate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Finch's someone who I generally confide him with everything,
Speaker 1: and he probably knew something was slightly off, like, but
Speaker 1: being obviously the captain, he's got so many other things
Speaker 1: when he's played, and I'm trying to take it easy
Speaker 1: on him without putting keeping more stuff on him. I
Speaker 1: know the stresses he's under as a captain, and so
Speaker 1: it's just like I'll let him go. And when I
Speaker 1: went over to him and said I'm done after this,
Speaker 1: like I'm just I'm going to have a bit of
Speaker 1: time off, and I've been struggling for a while. I
Speaker 1: sort of noticed something wasn't quite up. We haven't really
Speaker 1: caught up much recently, so it normally is one of
Speaker 1: the first guys I messaged when I'm on tour. I'm
Speaker 1: just like makee let's go for a coffee, beer, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, dinner. Yeah. Once once I told him he's
Speaker 1: like great decision, well done, and had to get up
Speaker 1: in front of the group and that was pretty difficult,
Speaker 1: and once everyone left, I sort of just broke down
Speaker 1: tears and just was just it was more. That was
Speaker 1: probably the first time I sort of showed any emotion
Speaker 1: for eight nine months, so I was probably since the
Speaker 1: World Cup, so it would have been about five or
Speaker 1: six months i'd showed any emotion whatsoever. It was just
Speaker 1: I was just drained. I just had enough, like emotionally
Speaker 1: just pretty much damaged. And once once I'd got that
Speaker 1: off my chest, a few guys just came up and
Speaker 1: gave me big hugs, like guys like Ashton Aga, Zamps,
Speaker 1: guys I'm really close to. We're just we're just like
Speaker 1: really good supports to that stage. And credit to a
Speaker 1: lot of the guys. They kept in contact, they sent
Speaker 1: messages and just to see how I was going. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I was warned about how the next few days, we're
Speaker 1: going to pan out. Like I sort of knew that, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some support coming your way, and that
Speaker 1: can be sometimes really hard to deal with, and they
Speaker 1: went wrong. It was those next two or three days
Speaker 1: were probably the worst I'd had in the next six months.
Speaker 1: It was as much as support was great, it was
Speaker 1: also so confronting and not something near like it's great
Speaker 1: seeing it now, like after you've sort of gone through it,
Speaker 1: but like when I saw it, I was like overwhelming.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go further back into my little hole
Speaker 1: and just stay there and not come. I felt like
Speaker 1: I was letting a lot of people down. I felt
Speaker 1: like I was I felt like I was taking easy
Speaker 1: out and I just I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: And I barely spoke to anyone those three days. I
Speaker 1: sort of shut everyone out of my life. And I
Speaker 1: still remember the first first phone call I finally made,
Speaker 1: and it was to Moses on Reeks, and that was
Speaker 1: I barely replied to a text message before then as well,
Speaker 1: And when I called him, I just first said, mate,
Speaker 1: I'm I think I'm finally ready to actually talk to
Speaker 1: people now. I've sort of haven't spoken anyone for a
Speaker 1: couple of days, and I just we had a really long, long,
Speaker 1: nice chat and just talked about his experiences and actually
Speaker 1: had a little bit of a laugh, which was nice
Speaker 1: and almost at her own expense. And that's the thing
Speaker 1: i'd probably it had been a while since I've been
Speaker 1: able to take the take the mickey out of myself
Speaker 1: and and just relax a bit, and that sort I
Speaker 1: probably got the ball rolling a little bit and I
Speaker 1: was able to probably pick up the phone a few
Speaker 1: more times that week and have a few more chats
Speaker 1: with people. But it was a it was a lot
Speaker 1: longer process than I thought it was going to be,
Speaker 1: And certainly after that first week, I knew that I
Speaker 1: was doing the right thing, because there's no way I
Speaker 1: could have finished off the summer.
Speaker 2: It was hard for you when it was public, and
Speaker 2: you know, and like you say, it was overwhelming. You know,
Speaker 2: he had virat kally talking about in press conferences. It
Speaker 2: sort of went around the world of cricket. How was
Speaker 2: it for your parents and your family?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were shattered. They were I don't think they
Speaker 1: knew the extent of how I was feeling through all that,
Speaker 1: and I didn't really speak to them much either. Through
Speaker 1: that stage as well, I was I told Vinnie not
Speaker 1: to come over. I was like, no, I just I
Speaker 1: just want to be alone, and that would have been
Speaker 1: so hard for them. All they want to do is
Speaker 1: support their loved ones, and I knew, I knew that
Speaker 1: was going to be hard for them, but it was
Speaker 1: just what I felt like I needed at the time,
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to be by myself. I didn't
Speaker 1: do much else than seal on the couch and just
Speaker 1: watch TV and stay on the couch. I basically slept
Speaker 1: here and that was it. I just I just stayed
Speaker 1: away from people. I didn't want to sort of ruin
Speaker 1: anyone's day with my mood and didn't want to sort
Speaker 1: of bring everyone else into my dark sort of abyss.
Speaker 1: That was I found myself stuck in.
Speaker 2: We'll get into how you got help in a little bit.
Speaker 2: I just want to rewind to you said you were
Speaker 2: on the road for a really long time. Tell me
Speaker 2: about the headspace you're in because you're in the UK,
Speaker 2: you were doing county cricket, you had the World Cup.
Speaker 2: It was a really long stint over there. What was
Speaker 2: your headspace like when you were there and shut off
Speaker 2: from everyone back home.
Speaker 1: I think. I think from the start of the World
Speaker 1: Cup onwards, I couldn't have been more focused like I was.
Speaker 1: I was at the peak of my powers. I think
Speaker 1: coming into the tournament. I was on fire. Had a
Speaker 1: really good series in India, and the UAE played really
Speaker 1: well against Pakistan and Dubai, and I just felt like
Speaker 1: I was I was getting everything right at the right time.
Speaker 1: And then the practice matches we had before the before
Speaker 1: the tournament started, hit the ball so clean like it was.
Speaker 1: Still was was really happy with the way everything was going.
Speaker 1: And there was probably that week in between county cricket
Speaker 1: where I went over, missed the IPL decided to go
Speaker 1: over to Lancashire and get some cricket in to lead
Speaker 1: into the World Cup. The week coming back was probably
Speaker 1: the most draining one. Obviously, everyone was required back in
Speaker 1: camp in May May second, I think it was, and
Speaker 1: I was over in England already had to come back
Speaker 1: and it takes you a few days to just anyway.
Speaker 1: And I found myself back playing in three days time
Speaker 1: in Australia and I just didn't know where it was.
Speaker 1: I was still a bit jet laid. I was still
Speaker 1: a bit over the place, and then a couple days
Speaker 1: later we were back over to Turkey for the for
Speaker 1: the War Memorial in Ena Cove, and then back into
Speaker 1: the World Cup, and I just I just sort of
Speaker 1: when we got back to England, I was like, I
Speaker 1: feel like I was here just the other day. It
Speaker 1: was just it was such a quick turnaround of going
Speaker 1: around the world in a week, and I was sort
Speaker 1: of a bit cooked to it for a while, so
Speaker 1: that so it took me a while to get back
Speaker 1: into normal motion again and just found out. I was
Speaker 1: just found I was a bit sluggish at the start
Speaker 1: of the tournament and you pay for that, like and
Speaker 1: I did, like I was. I started off a couple
Speaker 1: of games and played okay, and then a couple of
Speaker 1: things don't go quite right. People start talking about you
Speaker 1: got an issue with a short ball, You've got an
Speaker 1: issue with this, like trying to hit the ball too hard,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, all these things that you're
Speaker 1: thinking about yourself anyway, or people are telling you as
Speaker 1: a coaching staff, they're in the public area.
Speaker 2: And the other things that hurt, aren't they It's not
Speaker 2: the ones where you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: It's the ones that people are pretty much telling the truth.
Speaker 2: Is that fair? Or touching on something that you're already
Speaker 2: sensitive about?
Speaker 1: Well, they were touching on things that I was working
Speaker 1: so hard on, and I was like, I've done so
Speaker 1: much in my lead up to this to eradicate this problem,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm doing really well. So I
Speaker 1: got out couple of times the shortball in the early
Speaker 1: in the tournament, and I watched the replays back and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I was in a really good position there,
Speaker 1: like that, that's fine, that can happen. One of them
Speaker 1: was off the toe of the bat and I got
Speaker 1: caught in bold and I was like, that's fine, that's
Speaker 1: an okay dismissal. I take that. It's okay. You're in
Speaker 1: a great position. You've seen the boy early. That's fine.
Speaker 1: And then it comes up you've been out to the
Speaker 1: short ball again. It's like, but it's not the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's just not the same thing. I tried to rap
Speaker 1: one down the third man and got an outside edge
Speaker 1: and got caught behind. It's like, oh, he's out to
Speaker 1: the short ball. It's not the same thing. That's an
Speaker 1: execution ere It's not like as it's not a weakness
Speaker 1: as such. In my mind, it's like I've just I
Speaker 1: haven't executed properly. I was just my head's just slightly
Speaker 1: moving away to try and get that finer. So it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm okay with those dismissals where it's getting highlighted and
Speaker 1: the coaches are reading that and going, oh, yeah, we
Speaker 1: should probably go harder on him and talk to me
Speaker 1: about And then all of a sudden, you've got the
Speaker 1: balls and the nets starting like with the coach whispering
Speaker 1: in the area, going bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. He's got to
Speaker 1: work and he's bouncing, and that starts to affect your
Speaker 1: training because you started to worry about what's what's he
Speaker 1: telling the balls? Why they we've got this mutual agreement
Speaker 1: we don't try and hurt each other. And the nets,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I'm getting balls past my
Speaker 1: ears when we've got no side screens. The wickets are terrible,
Speaker 1: like you're in this inclosed area where you can't get out.
Speaker 1: So I was just like, so I was starting to
Speaker 1: get frustrate that, and then the frustrations start to build,
Speaker 1: and then your performances start to get worse. And it's
Speaker 1: just like a snowball effect of just it just keeps going.
Speaker 1: I specifically remember a net session at Lord's where I
Speaker 1: had to face Starky and Paddy Cummins, and I went
Speaker 1: through the whole net session just basically blocked everything. I
Speaker 1: didn't play a shot, hit maybe one straight drive which
Speaker 1: barely would have got a run, and I walked out
Speaker 1: and I've got that many pats on the back and
Speaker 1: I was like, that's not my job in this team.
Speaker 1: My job's to try and clear the ropes, like be there,
Speaker 1: like smack them at the end. And it's like I'm
Speaker 1: getting pats on the back for the wrong thing. Like
Speaker 1: if it's test match training, no worries, that's fine. But
Speaker 1: I'm literally just trying to get through these net sessions.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to anything out of them. I'm just
Speaker 1: obviously trying to get your approval that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do the right things. But in my head, I know
Speaker 1: it's not the way I'm going to play in a game.
Speaker 1: So it was just it just started to get this
Speaker 1: weird cat and mouse sort of game where it's like
Speaker 1: I'm doing things in the nets to make sure they're happy,
Speaker 1: not what I'm happy, So that was sort of a
Speaker 1: bit of a snowball effect through the tournament as well.
Speaker 2: Fair to say that's been an issue for you throughout
Speaker 2: your career. Is the changing of all different opinions of
Speaker 2: what's required of you?
Speaker 1: Is that fair? Yeah? Certainly. And I think people will
Speaker 1: always doubt the way middle order batters train it training
Speaker 1: Like you've got a guy like Alex Carey who bats
Speaker 1: it six or seven in the one day side, and
Speaker 1: he goes in there and starts practicing laps no and
Speaker 1: says a thing. I go in there and try to
Speaker 1: reverse sweep a spinner and everyone's down my throat about
Speaker 1: that's irresponsible. It's like, hold on a second, we're playing
Speaker 1: the same role. Like just because I'm doing it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you have to jump down my throat. It's been
Speaker 1: something that's sort of stayed with me for a long
Speaker 1: period of time because one person mentioned it. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it gets stuck in your mind, and then
Speaker 1: you play one bad shot the nets and people sort
Speaker 1: of go straight back to that conversation that's happened a
Speaker 1: few years ago. It's frustrating, but it's something I suppose
Speaker 1: over the last little period I've been able to address
Speaker 1: and like just go, you know what, I've just got
Speaker 1: to do whatever makes me happy. And and I think
Speaker 1: during the Big Bash, I had really good chats with
Speaker 1: a couple of coaches there about what I needed to
Speaker 1: do to get ready and came up with a formula
Speaker 1: that really worked for me. And I felt comfortable, I
Speaker 1: felt happy. I felt ready to go when it came
Speaker 1: game time. And I think that's all people want from
Speaker 1: a player is if you're one hundred percent ready to go,
Speaker 1: game time doesn't really matter what happens to training. I'm
Speaker 1: not like Steve Smith who tries to hit the thousand
Speaker 1: balls the day before training or two days before training,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. I don't need a lot to get
Speaker 1: ready because I could go in any situation. He knows
Speaker 1: he's back at three, he knows when about when he's
Speaker 1: going to go, and you know he's got plenty of
Speaker 1: time to get himself in. But for me, I could
Speaker 1: go in with three balls left, I could go in
Speaker 1: with thirty overs left. So it's one of those things
Speaker 1: you've got to practice for every situation. So that's what
Speaker 1: some people find hard to understand. Would you like to
Speaker 1: coach you I think I would. I think I think,
Speaker 1: especially after cricket, like I'd love to go into coaching,
Speaker 1: and I find I think I'm going to be a
Speaker 1: far better coach than a player. I know how frustrating
Speaker 1: I can be as a player, but I know that
Speaker 1: I reckon I'll be able to get the best out
Speaker 1: of myself. I've had a lot of coaches, I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of captains, and you sort of tie and
Speaker 1: take a bit from the best ones. You try and
Speaker 1: understand what doesn't work for some players. I watch I
Speaker 1: watch a lot of our training sessions and see the
Speaker 1: way our coaches go about with certain players, the language
Speaker 1: I use to them, and even in different teams around
Speaker 1: the world. So you've got the Stars, you got the
Speaker 1: Lancashire team, Australia and Victoria, and you sort of you
Speaker 1: try and pick up the best bits of the best
Speaker 1: coaches and you sort of see what works for them
Speaker 1: and what works with the players, and you're sort of
Speaker 1: trying to adapt that to your game and what would
Speaker 1: work for you. And I think I'd be able to
Speaker 1: coach myself.
Speaker 2: And would you frustrate you one hundred percent?
Speaker 1: I would. We'd have some good arguments that's for sure.
Speaker 2: You're listening to ordinarily speaking with Glenn Maxwell. So going
Speaker 2: back to the World Cup, there was a moment where
Speaker 2: Sean marsh gets injured and you're with him in the rooms.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that moment.
Speaker 1: I was pretty angry. I was frustrated. I was upset.
Speaker 1: So I was in there, laying on the on the
Speaker 1: physio table. My arm's like's just sitting on some ice,
Speaker 1: in a bit of pain, and I look, I've been
Speaker 1: told that saus has been hit as well. Sas walks
Speaker 1: up the stairs, comes in, kicks his helmet into the
Speaker 1: into the rooms, and I'm laying on this table and
Speaker 1: I'm watching this helmet come towards me. Bounces once, bounces twice,
Speaker 1: bounces up, knocks me off the table. Ice pat goes everywhere,
Speaker 1: and he's just typical way, sort of half a smirk,
Speaker 1: sort of looks at me and go, yeah, sorry mate.
Speaker 1: And I couldn't help but like, go, it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 1: You look on more pain than me. But so I
Speaker 1: knew he was in trouble when he came in, and
Speaker 1: immediately I sort of thought I felt bad for him.
Speaker 1: I completely forgot that the fact that I was injured,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, I hope he's okay. If anything,
Speaker 1: I wish we could swap our news, like whatever happens,
Speaker 1: Like he looks bad, like real bad. And we went
Speaker 1: to the hospital together and we're both sitting there and
Speaker 1: I think we're both hoping for the opposite news, and
Speaker 1: that's not a great thing when you're in that sort
Speaker 1: of mindset. So I was. I was already not a
Speaker 1: great headspace at that stage, and I was frustrated with
Speaker 1: the way I was playing. I was frustrated with how
Speaker 1: I was being perceived, and I felt like I was
Speaker 1: getting starts every game and then just find a way
Speaker 1: to get out. And when I got hit, I was
Speaker 1: just I was angry, and a part of me was
Speaker 1: hoping it was broken. I was like, nah, this is it.
Speaker 1: I just need to break. And then when I got hit,
Speaker 1: was it hurt, But it just wasn't quite the pain
Speaker 1: where I was like, I'm not sure that's broken. I
Speaker 1: felt bruised. I felt like it there might be a
Speaker 1: small fracture there, but it doesn't feel like it snapped
Speaker 1: right through. I was thinking about things I could do
Speaker 1: on the way back to snap it. I was so angry.
Speaker 1: I was just I was so angry with myself. I
Speaker 1: had indirected anger at other people in it. It didn't
Speaker 1: make sense, but I was just angry at myself and
Speaker 1: not being able to produce at all this World Cup.
Speaker 1: And I thought it would have been an easy escape
Speaker 1: because I felt like I was going to get dropped
Speaker 1: at some stage, and I thought, maybe this is the way.
Speaker 2: It was your ticket out of there.
Speaker 1: It was it was my ticket out of like disappointment.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was gonna get dropped at some stage,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I want to play this whole tournament
Speaker 1: and then get dropped to the big dance, like if
Speaker 1: I'm injured, like at least it's my that's my escape.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh yeah, I would have played, but I
Speaker 1: was injured. As it turns out, we both go in
Speaker 1: there and I get the news that it's not broken.
Speaker 1: There's some bad bone bruising, but I should be okay.
Speaker 1: And sos Go's in there he's got a fracture and
Speaker 1: he was absolutely shattered, and I was absolutely shattered for him.
Speaker 1: And that was with a harsh reality of like, I
Speaker 1: can't believe I felt that selfish that I'd be thinking,
Speaker 1: I hope it's broken, and he's going in there thinking
Speaker 1: that the other way that's probably that should have been
Speaker 1: the first alarm bell that something's not right. And when
Speaker 1: I spoke about that, when I talked to Vinnie about
Speaker 1: that later on, she has it's a bit it's a
Speaker 1: World Cup, like, how can you feel like that? And
Speaker 1: I was, I just I don't know, and should have
Speaker 1: been the first alarm bell. And so the next day
Speaker 1: we trained, and it was on a few painkillers, and
Speaker 1: I had Jail and Ricky Ponting just bounce the bounce
Speaker 1: the crap out of me in one net to see
Speaker 1: if I was ready to go, and that was my
Speaker 1: fitness test, and got hit a couple of times, but
Speaker 1: I just sort of I literally blank faced them both
Speaker 1: and just yeah, yep, this is what I'm doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure whatever makes everyone else happy, Like, I'll just
Speaker 1: I'll just do it. I'll just get through the rest
Speaker 1: of this tournament. Hopefully we'll win a World Cup. Hopefully
Speaker 1: I can somehow find something some some sort of form
Speaker 1: in the next game or so. And there's probably the
Speaker 1: third or fourth ball I faced in South Africa, and
Speaker 1: I hit a pool shot as hard as I'd hit
Speaker 1: the whole tournament, and it went for four and I
Speaker 1: was like, that's what I've been searching for, that's what
Speaker 1: that's the sort of form I've been in the whole tournament,
Speaker 1: and I just haven't been able to find at gap
Speaker 1: or I feel like I'm getting out, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's it, that's the moment. And two hours later I
Speaker 1: nicked one off Ribata pool shot and I thought, that's
Speaker 1: going over the keeper. I'll be fine here to Cock
Speaker 1: takes the one handed hangar above his head and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's typical. That's basically just typical my whole tournament. And
Speaker 1: as I was walking off, I was thinking, well, that's
Speaker 1: the end of my tournament. I'm definitely not playing the
Speaker 1: next game. And it was a slow, frustrating walk off
Speaker 1: and we just lost Kowaja to hamstring and Saucers out
Speaker 1: with a broken arm. I'm thinking there's going to be
Speaker 1: a couple of replacements in and they're going to come
Speaker 1: straight in. Wade, he's been in an unbelievable form. Pete,
Speaker 1: he's been on the casp. They're going to come straight in.
Speaker 1: They're going to take my spot. They're going to do
Speaker 1: a far better job than I am, and that was
Speaker 1: the reality it was going through my head. I was
Speaker 1: already thinking headed, I was already thinking about the negatives
Speaker 1: that were going to happen in the future, and that
Speaker 1: was what started to happen during that World Cup. I
Speaker 1: just started to think about all the things that could
Speaker 1: go wrong instead of sort of staying in the moment
Speaker 1: of like what every cricketer should. I still remember the conversation,
Speaker 1: so Vinnie was over there with me at that stage,
Speaker 1: because I remember having the phone call from it was
Speaker 1: jail or Cracker, I can't remember, but they told me
Speaker 1: that I was playing in the semi final. I was like,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, thank you, like congratulations, good luck
Speaker 1: in the game. And as soon as I got off
Speaker 1: the phone, I just bored my eyes out, like I
Speaker 1: had Vinnie there just I just I couldn't believe that
Speaker 1: I'd been given that opportunity to play in a World
Speaker 1: Cup semi after how little I delivered during the tournament.
Speaker 1: I was, I was mentally gone anyway, but it actually
Speaker 1: sort of reinvigorated me to I'm going to turn it on.
Speaker 1: I'm going to win us this game. You don't do
Speaker 1: everything I can, And I just remember facing Stokes and
Speaker 1: those first few balls and I was like, no, you're
Speaker 1: not getting me out facing him. No, werries all over him.
Speaker 1: Arch it comes on, drops a short ball, absolutely hammer
Speaker 1: it through midwek at four and I was like, this
Speaker 1: is it, this is my day. Then he boy was
Speaker 1: a knuckleball. Because I'm so switched on and so and
Speaker 1: so intense, I end up just popping one straight to
Speaker 1: cover and I just remember seeing this ball in their
Speaker 1: just going no, it can't all be over, like it
Speaker 1: just can't, like this is it, this is the day,
Speaker 1: and just that feeling of walking off the ground and
Speaker 1: sitting in the chain rooms going how can I be
Speaker 1: so switched on today? And it's still not happening. It's
Speaker 1: still not work, Like I don't get it. But I
Speaker 1: feel like I've done everything right mentally before the game,
Speaker 1: prepared so well. I feel like I've done everything right,
Speaker 1: and I'm in a great headspaceman out in the middle,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to my partner, I'm doing everything I do
Speaker 1: and I'm switched on, and I still can't get it right.
Speaker 1: I just still can't seem to succeed, and you just
Speaker 1: go straight back into that negative downfall and as you're
Speaker 1: watch in England just pile on the runs and comfortably
Speaker 1: over on our total. I'm just thinking, I can't believe
Speaker 1: this is it, Like I can't believe we're going to
Speaker 1: lose a Word Cup semi on the back of me
Speaker 1: having an average tournament. You're thinking about what have I
Speaker 1: done wrong to put us in this position? And I
Speaker 1: just sort of went back to different games during the
Speaker 1: tourment where if we had a won that we would
Speaker 1: have finished top played against New Zealand and then played
Speaker 1: a different place, played it, played at Old Trafford again,
Speaker 1: place we played really well at. Instead, We've had to
Speaker 1: travel again and play at edge Baston where we've got
Speaker 1: an awful record and England basically undefeated.
Speaker 2: There, and you felt like you were to blame.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was one hundred percent to blame.
Speaker 1: And I was looking around the change and going, I
Speaker 1: wonder if they're thinking the same thing. I wonder if
Speaker 1: they're looking at me, going if only Maxie had turned
Speaker 1: up this tournament, and I was just that was just
Speaker 1: the position I got into. It was just like then
Speaker 1: I started thinking if I wonder if Wadey playing today
Speaker 1: would have made a difference. He's been read hot Nick.
Speaker 1: He's been making hundreds everywhere, and I felt bad for him.
Speaker 1: I felt bad that he wasn't playing instead of me.
Speaker 1: And then seeing my parents after the game was they
Speaker 1: were just in tears of balling their eyes out, and
Speaker 1: they felt bad. And Mum and heard about me getting
Speaker 1: the news the night before, and she was upset already
Speaker 1: and she'd been crying the whole way through the game,
Speaker 1: knowing the sort of pain that I was in, just
Speaker 1: sort of mentally, And yeah, seeing her was hard after
Speaker 1: the game.
Speaker 2: The thing about podcast is people can't see you, but
Speaker 2: throughout that entire explanation, you were shadow budding. You were
Speaker 2: staring at a spot like you were back in the
Speaker 2: middle of the ground playing that innings all over again.
Speaker 2: You feel this intensely, don't you.
Speaker 1: Yeah? I still remember so vividly, and I probably played
Speaker 1: my mind through that a few times because I just thought,
Speaker 1: if I can get through, I can I can win
Speaker 1: this this game. I just felt like I could. If
Speaker 1: I could get on a roll here, if I could
Speaker 1: just bat the way I know I can bat, I
Speaker 1: can win this this game. I can get this to
Speaker 1: a total that there's no way Link can get near
Speaker 1: I've done it before at Edge Bason, I know I
Speaker 1: can do it again. And I felt like the way
Speaker 1: I started that innings against those bowlers, I felt like
Speaker 1: they knew it as well. They could probably see in
Speaker 1: my eyes that chatter had stopped already only after a
Speaker 1: couple of shots, and I think I only got eighteen
Speaker 1: or twenty or something like that, but I just felt
Speaker 1: so switched on. I felt so ready for the contest,
Speaker 1: and something I'd felt only a couple of times during
Speaker 1: the time. But I felt like it was back at
Speaker 1: the right time. And then as soon as you get out,
Speaker 1: every negative thought you had the day before comes straight
Speaker 1: back and just sits back on your shoulders.
Speaker 2: How much of what you're thinking about is reality versus paranoia?
Speaker 2: Because obviously you are under a lot. There is a
Speaker 2: lot more talk about you, just by the sheer way
Speaker 2: you play the game and the way you present yourself.
Speaker 2: But do you think when you look back at it now,
Speaker 2: there's also an element of paranoia there of you know,
Speaker 2: the coaches talking to the bowlers in the nets or
Speaker 2: the players in the rooms, like, how does do you
Speaker 2: know what I'm trying to ask?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a lot of its reality I think
Speaker 1: that paranoia probably comes from past experiences and sort of
Speaker 1: what you've been through in the past and how things
Speaker 1: have sort of worked out. So you sort of drawn
Speaker 1: those experiences and sort of try and put that into
Speaker 1: the reality, and if it doesn't come out that like that,
Speaker 1: it can be judges paranoia. And but yeah, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it was probably that from the year before,
Speaker 1: so being in and out of the one day side,
Speaker 1: not knowing if I was going to be in the
Speaker 1: World Cup squad in the following year. It was obviously
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind was like is this
Speaker 1: it is this the last game I played for Rostralian
Speaker 1: One Day Cricket And.
Speaker 2: So you're carrying that around for a really long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but before the before the World Cup starts like
Speaker 1: you're on fire, You're going really well. The coaches comparing
Speaker 1: you to vir at Culling and interviews, you feel like
Speaker 1: you're on top of your game. You're doing everything right
Speaker 1: by going to England, not going to the IPL, giving
Speaker 1: yourself six one day games over there in English conditions,
Speaker 1: to prepare for a final, to prepare for the World Cup,
Speaker 1: and I just felt like everything I did previous to
Speaker 1: the World cup didn't show with my performances. I felt
Speaker 1: like I did. I ticked every box, I did all
Speaker 1: the right things, and it just wasn't matching up. And
Speaker 1: it was so so overwhelmingly hard to take.
Speaker 2: So you come back and you've spoken about how you
Speaker 2: ended up asking for help, then you actually you get
Speaker 2: some help. What did you put into the place, What
Speaker 2: were the practical things that you did? How often were
Speaker 2: you seeing this psych? Were you diagnosed?
Speaker 1: Did you know?
Speaker 2: What did you end up doing to get better?
Speaker 1: So I did see a psych. His name's Ranjit. He
Speaker 1: works a lot with footy players, and so I saw
Speaker 1: him after Michael Lloyd put me onto him. Obviously Lloyd
Speaker 1: he was still working closer with me. We were chatting
Speaker 1: on the phone a fair bit, but to have someone
Speaker 1: in Melbourne that I could sort of rest on. We
Speaker 1: caught up. It was once every fortnight, but I was
Speaker 1: on the phone I suppose with Lloydi. Outside of that
Speaker 1: as well, I started writing it. I started writing a
Speaker 1: diary for the first few weeks, just to at least
Speaker 1: put some thoughts onto paper, and I think that helped
Speaker 1: for a while. I was able to sort of rid
Speaker 1: myself of the crap that was going on in the
Speaker 1: back of my mind, and I just I enjoyed writing anyway,
Speaker 1: so it was just like I was just writing random
Speaker 1: stuff on paper. So I was able to sort of
Speaker 1: start writing, and that distracted me for long enough to
Speaker 1: stop feeling sorry for myself for I suppose five minutes,
Speaker 1: and then I think. I think also trying to get
Speaker 1: into a daily routine was good. I sort of tried
Speaker 1: to get out, get to a cafe, read the paper,
Speaker 1: sort of blank it out from the world a little bit,
Speaker 1: and try and sort of be as normal as possible.
Speaker 1: And I didn't pick up my golf clubs for a while.
Speaker 1: But once I finally got the carriage actually go out
Speaker 1: to a golf course and I suppose see other people
Speaker 1: in public. Was It was hard at first, and then
Speaker 1: it became easier. I ended up going back to my
Speaker 1: local golf course where I played with a bunch of
Speaker 1: old fellas at Sanctuary Lakes. I just put my name
Speaker 1: down the sheet and play with them, and they were
Speaker 1: really good. They were like they didn't really over.
Speaker 2: Because that's the other thing. It's the people that you're
Speaker 2: running into in the public. Everyone knows who you are,
Speaker 2: so that were you're getting support or how was that going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people just people were really good, and I suppose
Speaker 1: they weren't sort of over intrusive. They just sort of
Speaker 1: they come and give me a pat on the back
Speaker 1: and got congratulations on being so brave, like I hope
Speaker 1: you hope you're going okay, and good luck with your journey.
Speaker 1: And that was basically the extent of a lot of
Speaker 1: the conversations I had in the public, and even some
Speaker 1: of those, i'd sort of get a bit teary, like
Speaker 1: even just them just being short little conversation. I'd sort
Speaker 1: of thanks very much, and then I'd sort of turn
Speaker 1: away and just sort of wipe a tear away and
Speaker 1: have to sort of keep my head down for a while,
Speaker 1: put my something's back on or something like just Yeah.
Speaker 1: I suppose once I got the carriage to sort of
Speaker 1: go out and I suppose catch up with the guys
Speaker 1: I played golf with. And I think that was probably
Speaker 1: the beginning of me sort of reintegrating back into the
Speaker 1: public and sort of feeling like I was a human
Speaker 1: being again. And I suppose that was the thing I
Speaker 1: think over the last eight months, I felt like I
Speaker 1: didn't feel like a human being. I just felt like
Speaker 1: I was this person being portrayed as a cricketer, and
Speaker 1: I was just I felt like that was all I was.
Speaker 1: I just I didn't know what I was like as
Speaker 1: a person. I didn't know what my personality was anymore
Speaker 1: because I was thinking so much into the future and
Speaker 1: what could potentially happen. I was never there when people
Speaker 1: were talking to me, and I saw it became a
Speaker 1: bit of a cardboard cutout everywhere I went.
Speaker 2: So you end up eventually coming back to the Big Bash.
Speaker 2: Did you come back too soon? Or were you happy
Speaker 2: when you came back?
Speaker 1: No, I came back at the right time, and the
Speaker 1: couple of weeks before when I played club cricket and
Speaker 1: came back in the first game I played was the
Speaker 1: second week of a two day with fitz Ronkassa. And
Speaker 1: the reason I chose that one as the first day
Speaker 1: back of cricket was it was in Geelong. It was
Speaker 1: a long way away from Melbourne. I was trying to
Speaker 1: sort of sneak back in without anyone sort of noticing,
Speaker 1: and we were batting and I was sort of just
Speaker 1: sort of sitting there chatting. I just wanted to get
Speaker 1: back around a group of mates again. I think it
Speaker 1: was about four or five weeks after I was diagnosed and.
Speaker 2: What were you diagnosed?
Speaker 1: Within it it was like a mild depression. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: suppose in an extreme case of sporting anxiety as well.
Speaker 1: So it was like, yeah, it was just basically hampering
Speaker 1: every relationship I had. Once I got back in the
Speaker 1: change room, it was it was weird. It was like
Speaker 1: weird been around it. Like even just rolling my cricket
Speaker 1: bag out of my car and putting it in the
Speaker 1: change room, that was weird. Probably the worst part of
Speaker 1: it was putting the pads on for the first time
Speaker 1: in over a month, and I felt myself getting emotional
Speaker 1: just doing that. I was like, this is that was
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things I've done, And I think
Speaker 1: in the previous month was actually just putting the pads
Speaker 1: on and what was the emotion? Fear like just like
Speaker 1: is this too soon? What am I doing? Like? Do
Speaker 1: I want to be here? Is this the game I
Speaker 1: really want to play for the rest of my life?
Speaker 1: I just started thinking do I actually I actually started
Speaker 1: thinking do I even like cricket? Like these are all
Speaker 1: the emotions going through my head? What am I doing?
Speaker 1: And then so I was next in for the next
Speaker 1: hour and fifty minutes, and the first hour was I
Speaker 1: was so nervous just watching and it didn't really matter.
Speaker 1: We were going to win the game and we're always cruising.
Speaker 1: I was just so nervous about just going out there again,
Speaker 1: like having to play cricket and there's no real sense
Speaker 1: to it. It was just like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: I'm going to go out there. I'm going to don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm going to do. Am I just am
Speaker 1: I just going to watch a lot? Is it going
Speaker 1: to be straight back to the gabble when I'm left
Speaker 1: when on the middle leg or what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: I don't really know. And once I was sitting there
Speaker 1: with the guys and just talking absolute junk for an hour,
Speaker 1: I was actually okay, and drinks came and I found
Speaker 1: myself actually quite relaxed and just talking to the guys.
Speaker 1: And then I think we lost a week hit with
Speaker 1: about ten minutes ago to lunch, and I went out there.
Speaker 1: They put most of guys on the fence and I
Speaker 1: nicked one where first slip. I tried to hit this
Speaker 1: ball so hard first ball and nick to probably where
Speaker 1: first slip would have been went four and because I
Speaker 1: think we're going to declare in about eight minutes time,
Speaker 1: so I was like, I'm just going to try and
Speaker 1: have some fun. And yeah, I ended up facing two
Speaker 1: balls and that was it. Came off not out five,
Speaker 1: and I remember telling the pads off, just going, thank god,
Speaker 1: that's over. At least I'm back. At least I'm I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get back into it. And the following week
Speaker 1: when I played, things started to feel a bit more
Speaker 1: normal again. Like I enjoyed the warm up, I enjoyed
Speaker 1: like being around the guys, I enjoyed being in the field.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the like the experience of cricket again. And
Speaker 1: I think I got fifty or sixty and I came
Speaker 1: off the grid around and said to one of the boys,
Speaker 1: I think I found it again. And it was there
Speaker 1: was nothing to do with how about it or anything
Speaker 1: like that. It was just the joy of actually playing
Speaker 1: the game and with your mates again. So that was
Speaker 1: that was a massive step, and I think that was
Speaker 1: what five or six weeks after. It wasn't too long
Speaker 1: after that that I was sort of back into training
Speaker 1: with the stars, and I think there was one more
Speaker 1: shill game which I put myself I put myself available
Speaker 1: for and after having a chat with Ranjured as well
Speaker 1: and said, look, I think I'm ready to go back
Speaker 1: and this is the last Shill game before Christmas. And
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, if you think you're ready, go for it.
Speaker 1: I don't see any issue with that. And they just
Speaker 1: decided to go a different way, which is fine, and
Speaker 1: I was like, that's fine. I was just get ready
Speaker 1: for the big bash and gives me an extra a
Speaker 1: week or two and I'd been having chats with David
Speaker 1: Hussey about the side and about what we're going to
Speaker 1: do for the last couple of weeks, and I found
Speaker 1: that really soothing. I found that worrying about other people
Speaker 1: instead of myself was really soothing. And looking forward to
Speaker 1: seeing how new guys go in the team, and Nathan
Speaker 1: Cook and I come over from WA like, that's exciting.
Speaker 1: Hilton car right, Clint Hinchliffe, these guys coming over, that's
Speaker 1: new and exciting. And I just found myself getting lost
Speaker 1: in other people's games and I found that really refreshing
Speaker 1: and relaxing. And once the Stars tournament started, or once
Speaker 1: the I suppose the camp started, I was pumped I
Speaker 1: was ready. It was one hundred percent ready.
Speaker 2: To go, and then you get picked again for Australia
Speaker 2: and then the surgery happens. How were the emotions through
Speaker 2: all of all of that.
Speaker 1: Well, I felt like I was better at dealing with them.
Speaker 1: So throughout the Big Bash, I was still talking to people.
Speaker 1: I was still trying to keep those conversations going. I
Speaker 1: was a lot better to pick up the phone during
Speaker 1: the Big Bash. So that was one of the things
Speaker 1: I put into place, was you.
Speaker 2: Got better at asking for help.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So as soon as I felt like I was
Speaker 1: starting to drop away a little bit, I picked the
Speaker 1: phone up. I talked to someone. I talked to as
Speaker 1: many people as I could. I got some different opinions,
Speaker 1: and I heard some different voices, and I just found
Speaker 1: that I'd sort of go away for a bit and
Speaker 1: go that's good, Like I can take a bit out
Speaker 1: of this conversation. I'm going to take a be abut
Speaker 1: of this employ that into what I'm doing, and I
Speaker 1: just I suppose getting the carriage to actually just speak
Speaker 1: to people like it sometimes going to be a hard
Speaker 1: thing picking up the phone and talking to someone and saying, look,
Speaker 1: I'm just not feeling quite right today, or just I'm
Speaker 1: feeling a bit off, like any do you know why,
Speaker 1: or you've known me for a long time, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And that was hard, and I think keeping being really
Speaker 1: harsh on myself to keep appointments and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So if let's just say we're catching up for a coffee,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be there like one hundred percent, I'll
Speaker 1: do everything you make sure i'm there. So catching up
Speaker 1: with my family, like I'm going to come see the
Speaker 1: kids yet nowhere I'm coming, and just making sure I'm
Speaker 1: keeping on top of those. And I think in the
Speaker 1: past I've probably been quite flippant with like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like I could catch up, but yeah, I might be busy,
Speaker 1: and then just sort of going off into my own
Speaker 1: little direction of just being like either lazy or being
Speaker 1: in my own little bubble of thinking too much in
Speaker 1: the future, what do I need to do in here?
Speaker 1: And basically forgetting So I was just you were being present,
Speaker 1: being present, just trying to be present. I was trying
Speaker 1: to be there for other people as much as they'd
Speaker 1: been there for me. So that was a really good
Speaker 1: change I had through the Big Bash, and I think
Speaker 1: once I had the selection being picked for Australia. It
Speaker 1: was really surprising I found, probably not so much the
Speaker 1: T twenty stuff, but the one day stuff. I was
Speaker 1: really surprised and caught me off guard.
Speaker 2: Were you happy or were you fearful or were you
Speaker 2: I was happy.
Speaker 1: I was probably a little bit fearful, and I told
Speaker 1: people straight away. I was like, jeez, that's caught me
Speaker 1: off guard. Like I'm a bit nervous about that. It's
Speaker 1: a bit longer than I thought I was going to
Speaker 1: be away from home. That's another month, like you guys,
Speaker 1: sure Like So I spoke to Cracker about and all
Speaker 1: that sort of thing in jail, and I was able
Speaker 1: to have those conversations straight away, and it was really good,
Speaker 1: Like I felt clear and felt happy after. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like I saw just let it simmer there and just
Speaker 1: then let it go. I was able to sort of
Speaker 1: have those conversations straight away, and I was able to
Speaker 1: get through that. And I knew the last five or
Speaker 1: six games of the Big Bash, and I was sort
Speaker 1: of struggling a bit with my elbow. I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: the extent and the original plan. So I had the
Speaker 1: MRI I had done before the semi final, I think
Speaker 1: it was, and everyone knew I had that done, and
Speaker 1: there was some floating bone in my joint which was
Speaker 1: causing me a fair bit of discomfort, but I was
Speaker 1: able to sort of move my way through it and
Speaker 1: it got through to a stage where it was just
Speaker 1: affecting day to day stuff. I couldn't put a shirt on,
Speaker 1: I couldn't I couldn't do certain things, and took a
Speaker 1: fair few painkillers for the final to make sure I
Speaker 1: could get through, and been a pretty cold, wet night.
Speaker 1: It probably didn't react that well and the next day
Speaker 1: it sort of swelled up a fair bit when I
Speaker 1: saw the specialist in the morning and he just looked
Speaker 1: at me and said no. Because I was hoping that
Speaker 1: he'd say, you can get a job before you go
Speaker 1: to South Africa, you'll be fine, and away you go.
Speaker 1: So that was my expectations of how the conversation was
Speaker 1: going to go. After having chats with the doctor the
Speaker 1: physio and like, you'll just get a job, you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: I was like, perfect, no worries, they'll be sweet, and
Speaker 1: he goes, no, you need surgery now. The job's not
Speaker 1: gonna do a thing. So that was hard to take
Speaker 1: but same thing. Oh, I've got the front foot do
Speaker 1: on the phone it started speaking to people. I was like, look,
Speaker 1: this is the reality of what's going on. I tried
Speaker 1: to sort of take all the emotion out of it
Speaker 1: and go, yep, it would be great to be playing
Speaker 1: for Australia, but I think of the long term. It's
Speaker 1: a teacher. We walk up at the end of the year.
Speaker 1: Let's get myself right now, and instead of me having
Speaker 1: three months out of the game where I'm sort of
Speaker 1: trying to get through and it all turns out badly,
Speaker 1: it's better to get it done now. Miss a month.
Speaker 1: It's it's not that bad.
Speaker 2: How are you feeling now, because we caught up just
Speaker 2: before Christmas? I think it was just before the big
Speaker 2: bash actually, and you were not yourself fair to say.
Speaker 2: I also wasn't like, well, we were both a couple
Speaker 2: of glum little people puching up, but you almost seemed
Speaker 2: a bit numb. You. You were sort of vacant of emotion,
Speaker 2: whereas now you sit across from me and you look
Speaker 2: like the MAXI that that sort of you know, come
Speaker 2: to know and love over the years. How are you
Speaker 2: feeling within yourself?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think I'm feeling back to normal, if there
Speaker 1: is such a thing as normal.
Speaker 2: I think we particularly when we're talking about you, well.
Speaker 1: Anyone from the Melbourne Stars for that. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's so much positivity I suppose going on around my
Speaker 1: life at the moment outside of cricket as well. So
Speaker 1: it's nice to actually have these outside distractions away from
Speaker 1: the game that I'm able to be present now, to
Speaker 1: be actually able to be here in the moment talking
Speaker 1: to people, listening to them. I've got a couple of
Speaker 1: friends that sort of come back into my life that
Speaker 1: I'm able to talk to them about day to day things,
Speaker 1: and I find it's just a great way to break
Speaker 1: up my day and I'm able to sort of concentrate
Speaker 1: on how they're going, and then everything else becomes instinct.
Speaker 1: From then on. Cricket's quite a simple thing now, it's not.
Speaker 1: I suppose it is the bell and end all being
Speaker 1: my job, but it's also like I'm not riding on
Speaker 1: what's going to happen in a week. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to worry about what's going on in the future. It's
Speaker 1: just I'm going to do what I can to get
Speaker 1: ready today and I'm going to try and put everything
Speaker 1: into place to next game, I'll hopefully have success. If not,
Speaker 1: that's fine. I'll talk to people that I know that
Speaker 1: are going to have the best interests at heart for
Speaker 1: me and do everything I can to have success going forward.
Speaker 2: Do you still love the game?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I do. I think the Big Bash really helped that.
Speaker 1: I think having the people around as well, guys like
Speaker 1: Trent Woodhill, Clint McKay, Jared Lofman, and David Husseys as
Speaker 1: the coaching staff, they were amazing and helping me regain
Speaker 1: the love and maintain that love of the game as well.
Speaker 1: And the amount of positive and negative conversations we had
Speaker 1: about different things was awesome throughout the timent. Whenever I
Speaker 1: picked up the phone, they'd answer and just we'd talk
Speaker 1: for five ten minutes about absolutely nothing. But it was
Speaker 1: just me getting the garbage out of my head. So
Speaker 1: I was able to go out during the game or
Speaker 1: during training and just focus on what we needed to
Speaker 1: do as a team to have success. And I think
Speaker 1: that sort of I think shone through at the start
Speaker 1: of the time where it was pretty clear and what
Speaker 1: needed to happen, and the guys took that really well,
Speaker 1: which was nice. And I suppose it could have been
Speaker 1: hard for those guys sort of know that I'd had
Speaker 1: six or so weeks off away from the game, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden I was their captain. But they
Speaker 1: were brilliant, they were supportive, they were I suppose everything
Speaker 1: that captain could ask for as a team.
Speaker 2: I've always wondered with you, and I think a lot
Speaker 2: of other people have, how do you think your career
Speaker 2: would have differed if you never got that ipl million
Speaker 2: dollar contract in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's an interesting question because, yeah, I have
Speaker 1: no idea because I think I only played two or
Speaker 1: three games during that tournament as well. And yeah, that
Speaker 1: was hard. As much as people think, oh, that's that's
Speaker 1: the most amazing thing in the world, it was actually
Speaker 1: quite hard because people are sort of getting into you
Speaker 1: for being this million dollar player, but you're not playing,
Speaker 1: you're not sort of showing your worth, you're not doing anything.
Speaker 1: You're sitting on the bench, and you get back and
Speaker 1: people are still talking about it, and it's it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't bid for myself, Like that's it's
Speaker 1: not the way it happened.
Speaker 2: And do you think that changed the course of your
Speaker 2: career in the way you were perceived.
Speaker 1: I think people certainly thought I was a T twenty
Speaker 1: specialist from then on. I think if I hadn't have
Speaker 1: got that contracting. Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful
Speaker 1: for that contractor, but I think my career could have
Speaker 1: taken a different path as far as the other formats. Certainly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it certainly did put a bit more of a light
Speaker 1: on let's play this guy. So it probably more as
Speaker 1: a specialist T twenty and the position I was playing
Speaker 1: the order for a lot of teams, as well as
Speaker 1: a pinch hitter or game changer or X factor or
Speaker 1: whatever words you want to use. It was no longer batsman.
Speaker 1: It was I will use this guy to change the
Speaker 1: momentum of the game. And it probably did have it
Speaker 1: to have its effect after that, and.
Speaker 2: You sort of referred to it throughout this. But Moses
Speaker 2: Enriquez is also going to be on this podcast, and
Speaker 2: he speaks a little bit about the way to of
Speaker 2: potential and how much that weighs on a person's shoulders
Speaker 2: when you're identified at quite a young age, how much
Speaker 2: does it weighed on your shoulders throughout your career?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I probably think back to one of my first
Speaker 1: games for Victoria and I remember being in the field
Speaker 1: and looking around and every other one of the players
Speaker 1: on the field had played for Australia and I was
Speaker 1: playing like one of my first games, and I still remember.
Speaker 1: So that was what I had to, I suppose deal
Speaker 1: with in the first few years of playing Victoria. They're
Speaker 1: all superstars, they'd all played higher on as, they're all guns,
Speaker 1: and I just felt so out of my depth and
Speaker 1: like just not ready for that whatsoever. And I think
Speaker 1: I played I got one fifty before I got picked
Speaker 1: for I got picked for the Shield team, so I
Speaker 1: got the fastest fifty for Victoria and then played Shield
Speaker 1: Crecket straight after I got one hundred second game. And
Speaker 1: then I think it was about four or five months
Speaker 1: later I was playing for Australia. So the year later,
Speaker 1: I got picked for Australia and I was like, how
Speaker 1: does this happen? I reckon, I've played a dozen one
Speaker 1: day games for Victoria and a lot of them with
Speaker 1: a lot of success, and when I got picked up,
Speaker 1: I was so shocked. I was so surprised and I
Speaker 1: just couldn't understand, like I was picked so far ahead
Speaker 1: of my time, and it was just the position they
Speaker 1: wanted me to play. And even though I did okay
Speaker 1: during that first tour in Dubai, and I just remember
Speaker 1: watching the footage and I was so raw or I
Speaker 1: was just I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I was just I was just playing like I was
Speaker 1: playing in the backyard and not really realizing that this
Speaker 1: is You're playing for Australia, like this is this is
Speaker 1: the being, this is all you want to do with
Speaker 1: your whole career, And it just happened so fast and
Speaker 1: it certainly caught me off guard.
Speaker 2: How will you play the rest of your career? Will
Speaker 2: you play it differently? Have you learned something from from
Speaker 2: particularly the last twelve months.
Speaker 1: I think I'll play my career the way I know
Speaker 1: I get enjoyment out of it. And I think that's
Speaker 1: that goes through training, that goes through the learning experiences
Speaker 1: I've I've probably learned over the last three or four
Speaker 1: months the conversations I have with people, making sure I
Speaker 1: keep that constant chat up and I'm always at my
Speaker 1: best when I'm chatting to people, keeping bubbly. I've always
Speaker 1: been known to be the energy in the field or
Speaker 1: whatever that is, and it doesn't change on them off
Speaker 1: the field. Like I'm at my best when I'm having
Speaker 1: fun and talking to everyone off the field and I'm
Speaker 1: talking to other people, I'm seeing how they're going, and
Speaker 1: it's as simple as just having a chat with people.
Speaker 1: And I think the more I do that, the more
Speaker 1: success I'll probably have in the future. And it's probably
Speaker 1: been something I've been wary of in the past of
Speaker 1: like staying comfortable and staying within your flags or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and I think it's just getting outside of
Speaker 1: that comfort zone and yeah, just having that first hard
Speaker 1: conversation and then getting an other way and then I
Speaker 1: don't start any friendship.
Speaker 2: With people being a how have you want to call it?
Speaker 2: Made of yours or whatever? Getting to know you over
Speaker 2: the years. It's a roller cos Yeah, it's a good point.
Speaker 2: But one of my favorite moments of my career is
Speaker 2: still and will always be after the twenty fifteen World
Speaker 2: Cup Final on the MCG and you run up to
Speaker 2: me and give me the biggest hug just before we
Speaker 2: do an interview, And I loved that moment because that's
Speaker 2: the thing about you. You take us through this roller coaster.
Speaker 1: But you are.
Speaker 2: You are when you're at your best, really present and
Speaker 2: the moments all matter. So you've been entertaining to watch
Speaker 2: and I look forward to watching the next chapter. And
Speaker 2: well done on how brave you have been and you
Speaker 2: also congrats on the engagement.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, Jus soon time.
Speaker 2: If you enjoyed this episode of Ordinarily Speaking, you might
Speaker 2: also want to check out episode two featuring former Test
Speaker 2: bowler Peter Siddle. Thanks for listening. Another episode will drop
Speaker 2: on Wednesday. Follow on Instagram at ordinarily Underscore Speaking. And
Speaker 2: if you like the train back on this podcast, it's
Speaker 2: Woody Pitney's love Me like you want to be loved.
Speaker 2: Check him out from Nabada. Tell me that you want
Speaker 2: to just let me that you are.
Speaker 1: Can I drop between the fire and send me that
Speaker 1: you are a big