Mr Cricket (24 page)

And that was it. After one of the most extraordinary careers in the history of the game, from the mouth of an Australian icon came the very simple conclusion that the better you are able to deal with all the pressures, stresses and fears associated with your task, the more likely you will be to perform at your best. Sure, it's impossible to completely rid yourself of fear. Sometimes a bit of nervous tension can be a good thing, as long as it is channelled positively. But here was one of the most admired cricketers of all time saying that gaining control over fear was the missing link in the pursuit of excellence. It's no surprise to me that Steve got out in his final innings playing his big trademark slog shot over mid-wicket. It proved that he was really enjoying himself and no longer carried on his shoulders that enormous weight he had lugged around for so long.

In an ideal world we would all like to play without constraints. Some of my best innings were played in the backyard when I was a kid. There was nothing to fear there. But ever since those days, building confidence and controlling fear became aspects of the game at which I had to work extremely hard at. Even now I'm not so sure I have those elements completely under control.

Doubt whom you will, but never doubt yourself.

Take my first Boxing Day Test. If there was ever going to be a match that could stir my emotions like no other this was it. What a great event it is. From my earliest days I'd fantasised about scoring a century in that match. I'd wake up the day after Christmas each year, watch every ball on the TV and pretend I was a part of it. When I was running up the sandhills as part of my Wanneroo training I kept that dream in my head.

So come December 26, 2005, I couldn't quite believe I'd woken up. There I was, out in the middle of the MCG, batting for my country in the Boxing Day Test. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. I was on 27 not out when Glenn McGrath joined me at the crease. We had a big task ahead of us and knew that every run we put on the board would set us off on a better path when we had to bowl.

I told Glenn, ‘Just hang in here for as long as you can. I'm going to try to keep as much strike as possible. We'll get to two balls to go in the over and if they bring in the field I'll try to hit a four and then get a single off the last ball.' If they left the field out, I would try to get a single and he would have to face one ball. We discussed how we needed to muster up as many runs as we could and that each passing minute we held on would get the South Africans more and more annoyed. It seemed like a clear plan. We knew exactly what we had to do. The problem for me, however, was that I'd been feeling very scratchy at the crease. I had been batting for a long time and faced a lot of balls when Glenn joined me, but I hadn't been able to get on top and there was no fluency in my batting. I was under a lot of pressure from the fielders and bowlers and was struggling just to stay alive.

Under those circumstances I expected the field to stay in and keep the pressure on me. However, crucially, when Glenn came in and was at the non-striker's end, South Africa captain Graeme Smith put the field back for me. With that one tactical move, I was able to start taking some of the load off myself and focus more clearly on finding my timing. Within a short space of time I found it a little less difficult to get the ball into gaps and my scoring rate started to pick up. It was a much easier task with the field back and it felt as though I had gone from being right under the pump to all of a sudden having the entire South African team surrender to me.

After scratching around trying not to lose my wicket, I seemed to now be able to find little trouble in putting the ball where I wanted – and I didn't even have to run if I didn't want to! This went on for literally an hour and a half. As each over passed, the confidence the South Africans had built up after going through our batting order was being slowly transferred over to me.

Not only was I feeling more comfortable but Glenn was becoming more and more settled at the crease. Watching the way he applied himself to the task inspired me. As we all know, he's not the greatest batsman but he's always aware of how important his contribution can be in the context of the match. Consequently, he treated his innings that day as though his life depended on it. If he hadn't shown such tremendous courage and determination, my innings would have ended shortly after his arrival in the middle and we would have had only a meagre total behind us when it was our turn to bowl.

Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhiliration of victory.

With Glenn's help I got to 50 and took a moment to savour how great it felt to get a half century in a Boxing Day Test. We had put on a pretty good partnership to reach that point and I decided that, because my confidence had grown so much, it was time for me to start hitting out. We had achieved our goal of getting up a good score and putting the pressure on the South Africans to reply as strongly. We knew that if we could steal a few more runs from them it would be a real bonus for our team both on the scoreboard and psychologically. I started throwing the bat around, trying to hit boundaries and kept turning over the strike at the end of each over. It was working just as we wanted it to and my confidence was starting to go through the roof. It kept increasing and increasing. It was like a wave going through me. I cruised into the nineties and for the first time I started to comprehend that I was on track to score a Boxing Day Test century.

When I reached 96 the thought did come into my mind that perhaps I should hold on to the strike until I got past 100. However, I chose to stick to the plan Glenn and I had employed, as it had worked so well to that point. Just because I was on 96 didn't mean I should abandon a plan that had had a positive effect to that point. So, with the field still back for me, I took a single off the second last ball of the over, leaving Glenn one ball to survive. That might have been a source of tension, but I felt I could really trust Glenn as he had stuck in with me and had shown that he meant business. The South African wicketkeeper, Mark Boucher, put a bit of a scare through me when he said, ‘Oh no, Huss. What have you done?' But, sure enough, Glenn saw out the over and a few minutes later I reached 100.

We weren't done yet. Glenn and I continued on for a while as we had been, frustrating our opponents and taking away their ascendancy. Our confidence was now sky high and it felt great. I remember taking a moment or two when I was on about 120 to look around the packed ground and think that this was it, this was the fabled Boxing Day moment I'd always dreamt about. Here I was in the biggest Test match you can possibly play in, standing out in the middle on 120 runs and, just like when I was in the backyard with my brother, I was playing with absolutely no fear or insecurity. It was the most fun I'd ever experienced. How could it be possible to play in such a high-pressure Test, yet feel as though it was just a game of backyard cricket? It was as though I was five years old again, trying to hit every ball for six. Amazing. We ended up putting on a healthy score and the partnership between Glenn and I became the catalyst for a great Australian Test match win. The transfer of confidence from their team to ours in the space of one session of cricket had turned the match upside down. So those couple of hours at the MCG were a great example to me of confidence working on the cricket field. That time we Aussies were on the winning side. But I have also witnessed the power of confidence work against us.