Cricket World Cup 2015—Some things are just meant to be
When I was a small boy playing with my dad at Casuarina Oval, the thought of any involvement in the winning moment of an ICC CWC final, and doing it on home soil, simply never entered my head. After all, why would it?
Being part of a moment like that is something that has been granted to only a very small group of players from around the world—although our coach Darren Lehmann has done it twice, first hitting the winning runs in 1999 then taking the winning catch four years later—but I joined that group on 29 March 2015 when I hit New Zealand fast bowler Matt Henry into the on-side for four to secure the title.
I can still see the moment in my mind’s eye. Defeat was impossible by that stage, with two runs to get and seven wickets and 17 overs in hand, and although I felt utterly relaxed at the crease I also felt an incredible buzz at the prospect of all our efforts reaching fruition.
The atmosphere within the MCG was incredible too. As I settled myself at the crease, Jimmy Barnes’s ‘Working Class Man’ was blaring out over the public address system and although, as a batsman, you usually switch off from all external sound, it was impossible to ignore the energy from the crowd.
On that basis I reckon that, whatever Henry had sent down, I would probably have looked to hit it away for the winning runs. So when he delivered a slower ball, just short of a length, it gave me the perfect opportunity to seal the deal. What I produced wasn’t exactly a thing of beauty; it was no classical cover drive or a shot like Mahendra Singh Dhoni produced four years earlier when he on-drove the ball into the crowd at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai to secure victory for India, but prettiness came a distant second to effectiveness in the circumstances for me—as it often does.
I produced a slightly ugly stroke that was half-whip and half-pull but as soon as I hit it and got it past the fielder at mid-wicket then I knew that was it and that we’d won. Shane Watson and I ran the first run simply out of habit, both of us with our arms raised, before the boundary was signalled, at which point I took off my helmet and dropped it, along with my bat, at the non-striker’s end and then leapt into Shane’s arms as we met in mid-pitch. By that stage our teammates were all racing out from the boundary’s edge to join in with the celebrations and it really was a moment that will live with me as long as I draw breath.
There were a lot of emotions coursing through my mind at that stage. There was joy and pride, obviously, as well as relief, that we’d done what we’d set out to do at not only the start of the tournament but also the start of the season, and the relief also came from the fact that the season, which had actually begun with a tri-series in Zimbabwe that also involved South Africa in the middle of 2014, was now finally over. And it was impossible not to think of Phillip Hughes too, as his passing was a tragedy that dominated the landscape of the season.
And from a purely personal perspective, the win really was the icing on the cake as it was the culmination of an incredible season for me. Even in November 2014, I wasn’t a first pick in the line-up and now here I was in the thick of things in sealing the win that made us all national heroes. We all knew it was our one shot at winning a CWC in our own country—it had been 23 years since the previous one was held in Australia and we knew we’d all be long-retired by the time it returned again—and to be able to achieve that ambition was something that could never be taken away from us.
The speed of my rise up the ranks in the one-day side came thanks to Michael Clarke’s injury problems and without those problems I might never have had the chance to press my case. I got an opportunity in Zimbabwe when he suffered a hamstring injury and then had another in the UAE against Pakistan when the same issue dogged him. I got 101 in Sharjah, batting at number three in the opening match of a three-game series, on a tough, slow surface and that gave me an enormous amount of belief in my ability to be a first-choice member of the side.
Even then, however, nothing was guaranteed and when we returned to Australia for a five-match series against South Africa to start the international season at home, I was again on the sidelines as Michael returned, only coming back for match two when he was again laid low by injury.
This time I batted at number four, behind David Warner, Aaron Finch and Shane Watson, but by producing scores of 10, 73 not out, 104 and 67, I actually managed to establish myself in the one-day line-up for the first time so that when Michael eventually came back it was going to be someone else rather than me who missed out.
That hundred against South Africa I regard as one of my best innings in international cricket, not least because it was against some outstanding opposition bowlers including Dale Steyn, and also because it played a vital role in helping us recover from being 5–98 to chase down 268 for victory. Without it I may still have found myself starting the CWC down the pecking order, but it showed everyone watching I had what it took to succeed in the top order in that format. It was the ultimate confidence-builder as far as I was concerned.
What pleased me most about the innings was that I remained calm and composed throughout—except for the final ball I faced, when I missed an attempted big hit trying to win the match with the scores tied—something that was absolutely vital in the circumstances we found ourselves in. The asking rate was well above a run a ball from a long way out and because we’d lost the rest of our top-order players very early in the piece it was up to me to drive the chase, something I did in partnership, first with Matthew Wade, and then James Faulkner. What we did really well was to bring the run-rate down bit by bit rather than going mad, and it meant that although we were in a tricky position, I never felt it was out of our control.
It was the innings that made me one of the starting eleven for the side in one-day cricket come what may, but the fact I had to produce something like that in order to force my way in was a pretty good indicator of where we were as a side at that time. To have scored a hundred in difficult circumstances in Sharjah and still not be certain of a spot just illustrated the strength at our disposal.
My effort in Melbourne against South Africa really was the start of what I regard as the best and most consistent period of my career up to the middle of 2017. From the beginning of the home summer in 2014 until the end of the CWC I felt absolutely in control of my batting and my life. I felt completely at ease every time I went to the crease and it felt like only a mistake by me, or an absolutely unplayable ball, was going to get me out. I revelled in the extra responsibility that came with the Test captaincy and then being pushed up to number three in the one-day line-up during the tournament, and although I’ve played well and very consistently since then, that four-month run of form really does stand out in my mind as the best I have ever played. If I could have bottled the feeling I had during that period then I would have done.
As we headed into the World Cup I think everyone in and around the squad knew we had a great chance of success. We knew we were a good side, we had a terrific blend of youth and experience, some tremendous power hitters and dangerous players right through our list and our fast bowlers were intimidating, especially in our own conditions. Tournaments are never won on paper but our line-up looked formidable and that was exactly how it turned out. I was certainly full of belief that we could win the tournament, something that was only reinforced in my mind by a strong showing against England and India in a tri-series beforehand.
From a personal point of view, the pivotal game for me was when we played Afghanistan at the WACA ground in Perth, as that was the match in which I was pushed up to number three in the list. James Faulkner was recalled to the side after recovering from a side strain picked up during the tri-series and in order for him to come back, someone had to miss out, and that someone was Shane Watson. Shane had been the man occupying the number three position, but with him out of the line-up and Michael Clarke only just back in the team after his back and hamstring issues, and him comfortable at four, it created a vacancy immediately behind the openers David Warner and Aaron Finch.
I’d started the tournament at four against England, then dropped down to five for the match against New Zealand in Auckland that saw Michael come back into the side, and although my scores up to that point had been five and four, I was relaxed about moving up the list. You could argue that after my two failures I should have been nervous about having George Bailey, our reserve batsman, breathing down my neck, but I was more excited than anything else at the prospect of batting at first wicket down. If you ask most batsmen in international cricket where they’d like to bat, especially in one-day cricket, then virtually everyone would reply it has to be somewhere in the top four. Doing that means you’ll get the chance to face plenty of balls and can therefore influence the course of the match to a far greater degree than by batting down the list. I knew my game inside-out by that stage and I certainly didn’t have any fears about facing the new or newish ball, and so it just felt right for me to be in at number three.
If there was extra pressure or expectation on me to prove myself in that position, given we were playing against a lesser-ranked team, then I didn’t feel it. It was just a case of me doing what I’d done throughout the previous three months, which was scoring runs by playing my way. It certainly helped me that David Warner played so well at the other end as we added 260 in 35 overs and he made 178 before being dismissed with 12 overs still to go. For my part I threw away the chance of a hundred, out for 95 from 98 balls, but the dismissals of David and myself were an indication of the way we wanted to play as a team. There was no thought of personal milestones and it was a case of going as hard as we could in the knowledge that we had batting power left in the dressing room. Darren Lehmann’s constant message to us was that if we had wickets in hand going into the closing overs then he wanted us to reach for the sky. He would rather we lost wickets trying to put the game well and truly out of the opposition’s reach than settle for a mediocre score by pushing the ball around. His approach had an element of risk about it, but the confidence that existed within our group meant we were happy to embrace that positive option, and the success we had proved it was the right way to go about things.
I’ve mentioned already how relaxed I was feeling and I think the same was true throughout the whole squad, something that really stood us in good stead. Plenty was written beforehand, and even during the tournament, about the added pressure of being a host country and how only very rarely did a side staging a CWC actually go on and win it. Australia had failed to get past the round-robin stage in 1992 and we had some of the players from that group, Ian Healy and Stephen Waugh, plus our bowling coach Craig McDermott, speak to us about that. They all admitted they thought they would cruise through and when they lost a couple of games early on and also suffered an injury or two, then the pressure grew to an intolerable level. It showed us that while peaking at the right time in a tournament was important, it also emphasised that we had to start well too in order to get to the business end of the tournament in the first place, and that’s exactly what we did when we thumped England by 111 runs after scoring 9–342 in the opening match. What we did throughout that CWC was actually revel in the fact we were at home rather than feel burdened by it. Familiar faces, familiar places and venues, and familiar conditions surrounded us, and that helped a great deal. It even allowed us to have a couple of days at home after that England game, something none of the other teams, with the exception of New Zealand, were able to do.
Our only real blip in the tournament came against our co-hosts in Auckland and it was probably, in retrospect, the best thing that could have happened to us. We got our approach wrong that day and it showed us that although we had plenty of power in our batting line-up, we still needed to play with our heads too.
The build-up to the match was dominated by discussion of the short straight boundaries at Eden Park and predictions in the media of scores in excess of 400. When Michael Clarke spoke with journalists after the match, he certainly thought we had been a bit too focused on the idea of hitting sixes down the ground rather than playing in our usual way, and maybe he had a point. We certainly paid the price for going too hard and to be bowled out for just 151 with almost 18 overs unused, even though the ball was swinging for Trent Boult, was pretty much unforgiveable. If we’d just taken any thought of those short straight boundaries out of our minds and batted normally then the opportunities to play big shots down the ground would almost certainly have come. We got fixated on the dimensions and it cost us.
The fact we almost pulled off a remarkable win was down almost entirely to some superb fast bowling by Mitchell Starc, who tore through the New Zealand middle and lower order with a series of fast, full-pitched late in-swingers, but it wasn’t to be. The positive, however, was that it was a match that I felt really kicked us into gear, because after that we really moved up to another level and never looked like being touched.
The margins of our victories after that point illustrate that view very well—275 runs, 64 runs, seven wickets (with 34.4 overs in hand), six wickets (with 16.1 overs unused), 95 runs and then seven wickets in the final against New Zealand. There were times in most of those matches when we were put under pressure and in each instance we came through with flying colours. At the same time, my own contributions after shifting to number three were 95, 72, 65, 105 in the semi-final against India at the SCG and an unbeaten 56 in the final. Getting runs at the back-end of the tournament really did give me a huge amount of satisfaction.
The innings of 72 against Sri Lanka makes me laugh when I think about it. It was scored in 88 balls but when I got out, looking for a big shot down the ground, there were still 17.3 overs left and I wondered aloud to Darren Lehmann when I got back to the dressing room whether I’d started to look for a big shot and a major increase in the tempo of the innings too early. In fact, what I did by getting out was to bring together Shane Watson and Glenn Maxwell who then proceeded to blitz the bowling to all parts of the ground in incredible fashion. They added 160 in just 14 overs and when their stand was complete I eased up to Darren with a smile on my face and said: ‘Maybe I went hard at just the right time after all.’ My getting out was the catalyst to a remarkable partnership that was one of my highlights of the entire tournament.
Playing in a CWC, doing well personally and being part of a successful team means I have a wonderful collection of memories to draw on. Wahab Riaz’s duel with Shane Watson in the quarter-final at the Adelaide Oval was certainly something I’ll never forget. It really was a ferocious spell of quick bowling from Wahab and I spent most of it in the best place of all—the non-striker’s end. I seemed to always be able to work a single off my hip and expose Shane to the majority of the onslaught and although he had some good fortune, being dropped at fine leg from a top-edged hook shot, it was some of the most compelling cricket of the tournament. There wasn’t much we could say when Shane and I met in mid-pitch between overs as we both knew we had to get through the spell. All I said was ‘Watch the ball closely’ and the fact he was still there at the end was testimony to his character. It was a curious passage of play, too, as Wahab kept stopping at the end of his follow-through to clap, trying to rouse his teammates, and that was something I’ve not seen before or since. But from my point of view it was great to get runs in tough circumstances. There was a little bit in the pitch for the faster bowlers with some grass left on by the curator and in addition to some seam movement on offer there was also some swing too. Having said that, the ball came on to the bat beautifully and I felt in control from the very first ball I faced. As soon as I was underway with a boundary through square leg off Sohail Khan, I never looked back. I felt my cover-driving in that innings was the stand-out and I know that when I’m cover-driving well, with my nose right over the ball, then my game is in excellent working order. That’s certainly how it felt that night.
In terms of feeling relaxed, it was a case of more of the same in the semi-final against India when I scored 105 from 93 balls in what was my best innings of the tournament. It was one of those occasions when, to use the sports psychologist’s expression, I was in the zone. Absolutely everything felt as though it hit the middle of my bat, I felt no nerves at all, was just in the moment and found I was almost on autopilot. I’m at my best when I don’t overthink or overcomplicate things out in the middle, and this was a case in point, although, as I mentioned earlier, I felt like that for large parts of that home summer. It was an excellent pitch, and although it looked dry and appeared likely to offer plenty of spin later on, it actually held together throughout the course of the match and was great to bat on.
As was the case at the same venue against Sri Lanka when I got out with loads of overs in hand—I was dismissed in the semi-final with almost 16 overs left—that was in keeping with our philosophy of going hard when we had wickets in hand in the knowledge we had plenty of power still to come. With India’s batting line-up, we knew we’d need a substantial total. When we finished with 7–328, I felt that was just about par with a shorter than usual boundary on one side of the ground.
When India got away to a flying start it appeared likely we’d need every one of the runs we had on the board, but the pressure of having to score more than a run a ball throughout the innings, and in a semi-final too, became too much for its batsmen eventually, and once we got the first two wickets—Shikhar Dhawan caught at deep point and then Virat Kohli, bounced out by Mitchell Johnson—I always felt we were in control.
As I’ve said, I’m not a great sleeper ahead of big matches and that habit has only intensified since I’ve become captain, but although I didn’t get that much rest before the final against New Zealand, the main reason for that was excitement rather than nerves. To play in a CWC final is like having all your Christmases come at once and that’s certainly how I felt immediately beforehand. It certainly felt different from anything I’d experienced before as a player. When I walked out onto the ground ahead of our warm-ups that day, the crowd had come in very early on and helped to create an amazing atmosphere.
I think it was actually a blessing in disguise that we lost the toss, as we would have batted first had we won it. The problem with batting first against a side including the likes of Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum at the top of the order, is that you can look to go too hard too soon, thinking you need a big score to try and put the match beyond them, but chasing removed any of those issues and given I’d marshalled a chase against South Africa on the same ground just a handful of months earlier, I knew it was something we could cope with.
As it turned out, by fielding first it allowed us to get over any nerves we might have had very quickly as a group and as soon as Mitchell Starc set the tone by bowling McCullum in the very first over, then I don’t think any of us were ever in any doubt that it was going to be our day. The noise around the MCG when that wicket fell is still something that I remember even now, more than two years later, and just the thought of it sends a shiver down my spine. The roar seemed to bounce around off the stands.
There was a suggestion we were more aggressive as a team than we had been in the round-robin match against New Zealand, more in-your-face, but I’m not sure that was the case. I think any aggression we showed was more in the execution of our skills than any over-the-top body language or chat. There was a confidence in our squad that we were the better side and that if we let our skills take over then the rest would look after itself, and I think that’s what happened on the day.
It was just about the perfect game of cricket from our perspective with early wickets and then a rousing performance to wrap up the New Zealand innings after Ross Taylor and Grant Elliott had effected a recovery of sorts. We would have taken having to chase 184 on that pitch every day of the year, and the fact we did it with such ease was an illustration of that point.
I never felt nervous during my innings, although I did have that shiver down my spine again as I walked out to bat because of the noise that seemed to echo around the venue. For me it really was a case of ‘see ball, hit ball’ without over-thinking things. There was no need to be concerned with run-rates chasing such a relatively small target so I knew that if I remained in the middle then the odd bad ball would come along and we would get the runs without a drama.
David Warner and Michael Clarke both got after Tim Southee’s bowling but part of the reason for that was the attacking fields set by Brendon McCullum. At one stage he had three slips and a gully, I remember, based, I’m sure, on the fact that he knew he had to bowl us out to win. What that did was offer up gaps in the field that we were able to exploit and it seemed we were scoring pretty much a boundary per over for a lot of the time.
Very little was said by the batsmen out in the middle as we all knew our jobs, and although I was relaxed, I didn’t allow myself to see the finishing line until we’d got to the position where we needed about 20 to win. At that stage, with eight wickets in hand, I knew we couldn’t lose so it was possible at that point to try and savour what was unfolding, knowing it was the culmination of a lot of hard work by me and my teammates over a long period of time.
I did the team’s lap of honour draped in an Australian flag given to me by someone in the crowd and it couldn’t have been a more perfect evening. Dad was there, as he had been for the semi-final, and he came down to the dressing room afterwards to share a drink and enjoy the moment. Mum was absent, but she followed the action from home. She’s never really enjoyed watching matches and gets bored very quickly.
The celebrations lasted right through the night, as we went back to the Langham Hotel and partied on the roof until the sun came up before a few hours of rest, a gathering at Federation Square to allow the public to share in the triumph and then another get-together with family and friends at a Melbourne restaurant. It really was an amazing 48 hours at the end of an amazing tournament and an amazing season.
Something that the victory did for me was to make me realise how much I wanted a time like that again in my career. Yes, to be part of a CWC–winning side was an absolute highlight and only our Ashes triumph of 2013–14 comes close to rivalling it from my perspective. But I don’t want that success in Melbourne to be my only one in a global tournament and it’s what I now use to motivate myself to achieve something similar in the future. Winning big games and enjoying the success with teammates is one of the main reasons I play the game, and rather than being satisfied with having joined a select group of people who have winners’ medals, I want more of those moments before I finally bring down the curtain on my career.
As for that win in Melbourne, I knew it was my time when, on 16, I chopped a ball onto my stumps from Henry only for the bails to stay on. That summed things up for me during that CWC—some things were just meant to be.