Routine, habit and superstition
The keys to my success as a cricketer are repetition and routine. Repetition is the process that has allowed me to develop my skills so that I end up doing things automatically. Hitting hundreds of balls pitched in a certain place in a certain way and in a certain direction during numerous training sessions over a long period of time means that when I face that same delivery out in the middle, I don’t have to think about what I’m doing. My body simply goes into autopilot and the shot I’ve been rehearsing over and over again is the result. That is the side of the game that spectators don’t see.
Alongside that process, routine, for me, is just as important. By having a standard order of doing things it allows my mind to focus on the actual act of playing or practising cricket. I heard a story about Barack Obama that during his two terms as President of the United States of America he only used to wear grey or dark blue suits. His thinking was that he had enough decisions to make during each and every day without needing to make another one about what he should wear, so he boiled things down to the basics, allowing him to focus on more important things. The same is true with me having a routine.
When it comes to training or playing, I’m always up early in the morning. I still have that excitement about getting to a cricket ground, that anticipation and enjoyment of what I do and hopefully I’ll retain that for as long as I’m involved. Breakfast is a must and then I’ll always look to go to the venue ahead of the rest of the playing group. I like to get there early, have a chat with the coaching staff, have a look at the pitch, get my gear in order and also have a bit of ‘me’ time where I can think about what I’m aiming to achieve during the day. If it’s a training session it may be that I want to practise a particular shot or do some work on my fielding skills. What I don’t ever do is just practise with no purpose; if I attend a session then my aim is to get something from that session. Practice for the sake of practice is a waste of time.
I think my desire to be early to the ground comes from Dad. He has always had a similar mindset and he’s passed on the desire to be early to me. I hate being late and I love being first, even in simple things like getting to the airport well ahead of a flight time. When it comes to cricket I just love that extra 15 or 20 minutes to potter about, relax and ensure that I’m not rushing as I complete my preparations for a training session or match.
In the practice nets there’s obviously a pecking order, with the frontline batsmen always getting the chance to take first strike and that’s something I’ve always sought. When Michael Clarke was captain, I still made sure I had my pads on and was ready to go in second after him. I’m not a great one for sitting around and doing nothing. I want to be on the go.
Michael was one of the players I shadowed in my early days, both with New South Wales and Australia, along with Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey when I made it into the national side. I’ve mentioned previously that I based a lot of my early thinking on how to play spin bowling from watching Michael Clarke. When it came to each of those players, I tried to be like a sponge, soaking up what they were doing and trying to take the best of it and adapt it for my purposes. Ricky was incredible in that everything he did in training seemed to be at a million miles an hour, and when it came to fielding drills he was always at 100 per cent on the basis that his intensity at practice had to be identical to a match situation or else it was pointless. I learnt from that trio, and Ricky in particular, that the act of practising at high tempo meant actual competition was less of a step up.
I’m definitely a creature of habit, but there’s one aspect of my preparation that’s changed in a major way since the Test tour of the Caribbean in 2015, and that’s the number of balls I hit in the nets, either on a training or match day. Up until that point, I always hit countless deliveries and throw-downs, as I just liked to feel bat on ball. When I was younger, still developing my game, that was no bad thing for the reason I’ve already mentioned—improving my skills. But over time I realised there was a point where I was in danger of actually batting myself out of form, especially if I didn’t hit the ball as well as I wanted during any particular session. Doubts had the potential to creep in and there was a danger of it becoming batting for the sake of it.
I recognised the issue but actually breaking the habit proved tough as it formed such a pivotal part of my routine. After all, I’d broken back into the Test squad and become a regular on the back of following that approach. But thankfully the decision to change was actually made for me by the state of the practice pitches at Sabina Park in Jamaica during that 2015 tour. The pitches simply weren’t up to scratch and so I was forced to resort to throw-downs on the outfield instead. When I then went on to score 199 it showed me that I could still perform well without facing a high volume of balls, either in the lead-up to or on the day of matches, and so that’s been my method since that time.
As an example, for the tour of India in 2017 I batted for long periods in the nets in Dubai during our preparatory camp and also once we arrived in Mumbai, but once the series started I reduced the numbers of lengthy batting sessions I had. Instead it was a case of hitting a few balls, making sure everything was in working order, and then stopping, ensuring instead that I was in the right physical and mental state to perform. And as was the case in the Caribbean, match days saw me try to limit myself to a few throw-downs on the outfield. This actually became even more important as the series wore on, as having spent so much time on the field it was vital that I saved as much energy as possible for the match situation. I knew I was hitting the ball well, I had my plans against the Indian bowlers and it was just a case of trusting those plans and going out and executing them to the best of my ability.
Of course, I’d never rule out going back to a routine that would see me hitting a large volume of balls in the nets. If there was ever a time when I was out of form and felt there were aspects of my game I needed to work on to an intense degree, then that would be an approach to be considered. The advantage I would have if I opted to go down that route would be that, having tried both options with success—high and low volumes of balls faced—I could switch between the two without feeling too stressed about the change.
The most important part of any batsman’s kit is the bats he uses and I’m no exception. I usually carry between seven and ten with me at any one time as it’s nice to have options and I like to have plenty of spares with me in case any break. I can use one that’s straight out of the factory but I prefer to knock them in during training wherever possible, and that means I always have a handful that I’m comfortable with at any one time.
When it comes to bats then I’m quite pedantic, as you might expect, in the same way that a top golfer is about his clubs or a snooker player is about his cue. The weight I use is always the same, somewhere between two pounds, nine ounces to two pounds, nine-and-a-half ounces or 1.162 kilograms, and I don’t change bats depending on the format I’m playing. I know some players prefer heavier bats for the shorter formats, but while they might feel it gives them the ability to hit the ball harder and further, if I use a bat that’s any heavier than my preferred weight then I notice it in the pick-up and I struggle to swing it in the way I want.
I’ve used the same weight bat ever since I was 18 years old and even though I’m now much fitter and stronger than I was then, it’s something I’m completely comfortable with, a bit like an old pair of running shoes or an old t-shirt that fits perfectly. And I’m fortunate that my bat manufacturer, New Balance, will tailor the bats I’m sent to fit in with my personal preferences. I like the back of the bat to be quite full rather than have a large taper on either side of a point running down the middle, and I also like the toe of the bat to be cut in a straight line rather than tapered upwards at either edge. Both of those preferences give me confidence when the bowler is running in as, when I look down at the bat in my stance, they make me feel it is as wide as it can be.
I only use one rubber grip on my bat, although there was a period in late 2013 and early 2014 when I switched to two. That was forced upon me because during the Boxing Day Test match at the MCG, England batsman Michael Carberry swept a ball hard into my right hand while I was fielding at short leg, bruising it quite badly. I was struggling to grip the bat so I added another grip on one of my bats ahead of the next Test in Sydney as that meant my hand didn’t have to close over the handle to quite the same degree. I used that bat at the SCG for that match and scored 115. It meant I stuck with the bat—and the two grips—through the tour of South Africa that followed, including the hundred I made at Centurion in the first Test, the innings I rate as my most important and significant in that form of the game. By the time we got to Cape Town for the final match of that series, the handle was starting to flex on its way to breaking and although I don’t like changing bats during an innings, it just didn’t feel right so I was forced to do so. It was back to one rubber but with my hand fully healed by that stage I kept hitting the ball well scoring 84 and 36 not out and I’ve stuck with one grip again ever since.
The number of pairs of batting gloves I have is something of a standing joke within the dressing room, as is the way I keep them in order, as I number each pair. As you will have gathered, I’m very particular when it comes to my gear and I don’t like to use gloves that haven’t been manufactured and sent to me as a pair, hence the idea of numbering them by making a small mark in pen on each one. I probably carry between 12 and 15 pairs with me at any one time because I’m a big sweater out in the middle and I like to change them frequently, maybe every 20 to 30 minutes, or even more often than that if it’s especially hot, as I don’t want to bat with wet gloves or get them so wet that they won’t dry reasonably quickly once I’ve swapped them. As a junior I did use fingerless inner gloves to absorb the sweat from my hands but after starting to play professionally, I found I got a better feel for the bat handle by not using them. In a year I probably get through between 30 and 40 pairs of gloves depending on how much I bat.
Perhaps the habits I have that provoke most eye-rolling and amusement among my teammates are my use of football socks when I bat and my insistence on taping my shoelaces to them before I put my pads on.
I started wearing football socks—plain white for Test matches and blue, red and white Sydney Roosters socks from my favourite rugby league side for one-day internationals and Twenty20s—that run up my calves and finish just below my knees for batting in around 2012 and have stuck with the habit ever since because I like the way they offer an extra layer, in addition to my trousers, between the pad straps and my legs. But the taping of the laces to those socks only started during the Indian Premier League (IPL) of 2016.
When I batted I always hated to look down and see my shoelaces. Don’t ask me why, but I always found them a distraction, especially if they weren’t tied neatly. It might seem like a strange thing to notice but I did notice it and I didn’t want to. To cover them up I used to ensure the bottom of each pad was over the tongue of my shoe and I also folded the laces under my batting trousers to ensure they didn’t pop out unexpectedly.
That was fine on national duty as Cricket Australia—issue batting trousers always had enough fabric to ensure I could get a decent fold in them but that wasn’t the case when I went to play for the Rising Pune Supergiants—the trousers had much less fabric in the front—so I had to find another solution.
The answer was to tape the laces to my socks before I put my pads on, winding the tape around my ankles twice to keep them in place, and the first time I did it, against the Gujarat Lions in Pune, I scored my first hundred in the shortest form of the game, 101 from 54 balls. As a creature of habit and finding something that worked for me, I stuck with it to the extent that even when I was back on international duty I still kept doing it. The only issue I found at first was ensuring the correct tightness of tape—if it was too tight it would restrict my running and if it was too loose there was always a chance of the laces working free. But in the 18 months after I started the habit I never had an issue with it in a match.
Using one of Adam Zampa’s hairbands was something else that became a habit. It started during the home summer of 2016–17, as I decided I was going to grow my hair but in doing so I found it was distracting me by coming down onto my forehead inside my helmet. Adam had been using a band for a while and during the ODI series against Pakistan I asked if I could use one for an innings in Perth. As was the case with the shoelace taping, it proved a hit straight away as I scored a hundred (108 not out off 104 balls) the first time I tried it and so, again, I decided to stick with it.
Headgear has always been a bit of an issue for me because I have a very small head in comparison to most other people, certainly most players in the Australian squad. When I first came into the limited-overs side I just couldn’t get a cap that fitted me and so I had to resort to either gathering the fabric of the cap up at the back and taping it into a fold so that the cap fitted securely on my head or, more often, just not wearing a hat at all. As I became more of a regular in the side I felt more confident to let Cricket Australia know about my issue and, to its credit, the staff ensured the manufacturers made hats of my size, even coming along to measure me for the purpose. Usman Khawaja had the same issue and now actually asks for the ‘Steve Smith size’ when he puts in requests for caps and sunhats.
Are all these things stupid habits or crutches that take away from what I’m trying to do, which is to play cricket to the best of my ability? I don’t think so. In fact, I find they help me because they actually take my mind off the pressures of the game. Everyone’s different and every player has routines and habits that make them who they are. Steve Waugh had his red rag, Shane Warne had his ham and pineapple pizzas and I have the tape that holds my laces in place. It’s just me, it’s who I am, and I reckon my performances over the past few years haven’t suffered because of anything I do. On the contrary, my figures seem to indicate that whatever I’ve been doing, it’s worked.
Although I love the game, I still regard myself as a terrible watcher. I can watch and enjoy a match if I’m not involved, but if I’ve been dismissed and have to sit on the sidelines then I find that a very frustrating experience as all I can think about is the runs that I’m missing out on scoring. I’ve had to become better at sitting and watching because as captain I know I need to set an example, but at the same time I also use the thought of that frustration as one of my motivations for doing well.
If it’s raining and no one’s out on the ground, then that’s a different matter, and my habit of choice in that situation is to work on a crossword puzzle. I first got interested in them when I used to help my grandmother as a child, although at that stage all I was really doing was reading out the clues rather than filling in the answers. Nowadays I’ll carry around a book of them or pick up the newspaper and have a go over breakfast or a coffee, or sit around with teammates in the dressing room. When I got back into the Australia side in 2013 Chris Rogers was usually someone who you could expect to be working on a crossword puzzle during a rain delay. Adam Voges was also someone who enjoyed the challenge and now I can turn to players like Moisés Henriques, Patrick Cummins and Nathan Coulter-Nile for assistance. The attraction of crosswords is that they make me think about something other than cricket and in any downtime that I have I find them a very useful outlet.
Since becoming a regular at international level, one aspect of my life that has improved almost beyond measure is awareness that I am what I eat and drink. When I was starting out in the game, I think it’s fair to say I was a bit of a party boy and I liked a drink, and when I left home and moved into my own apartment I didn’t pay much attention to what represented proper nutrition. My home was close to a number of restaurants and cafes and so cooking was a very rare occurrence, eating out was commonplace and even if I had a night in watching a movie with my housemates then it wouldn’t be unusual for my evening meal to be a packet of peanut M&Ms.
As I grew older I realised—and was educated at state and international level—about the value of eating and drinking in relation to the quality of my own performances and so I started to make better choices. I began to eat more energy foods like pasta when I felt I needed a boost or if I was spending a lot of time playing or training, but if I wasn’t doing as much then I’d limit my intake of carbohydrates in an attempt to maintain and control my body weight. A large part of my diet now is lean meat and vegetables and I’ve cut out chips and junk food. It’s not rocket science, it’s about giving myself the best chance of being successful, and my results have shown me I’ve been on the right path.
Having said that, I do allow myself a glass of wine with a meal every now and then, or a drink when I’m with my teammates if we do well or win a match. I’m a believer that you have to let your hair down every so often and unwinding is absolutely vital after the five days of intensity that comes with Test match cricket.
I did follow the habit of many cricketers down the years of not eating duck, but that changed when I was on the Ashes tour of 2015. Our hotel in London had an excellent Chinese restaurant on the top floor and I took my parents and Dani there for a meal the night before the Lord’s Test. They served delicious duck pancakes and I tucked in, only to realise afterwards what I’d done. I’d never done well at Lord’s before, but I needn’t have worried as I made 215, my maiden Test double hundred, and I’ve not avoided duck since.
I love chocolate too, but I do try to limit myself, using it strictly as a reward if I do well. It was an idea I got when speaking with Adam Goodes, the Sydney Swans Australian Rules Football player, as he told me that whenever the Swans won and he did well he used to treat himself to a block. I decided to take up that idea so now, whenever I get a hundred, I buy myself a block of chocolate.
My primary focus has always been cricket to the extent that everything else has always come a distant second, including getting my full driving licence. I had my provisional ‘P’ plates soon after my sixteenth birthday but with cricket then taking centre-stage, it took years for me to get around to doing my driving test. It meant that when I got the call to captain the Australian team in 2014 I was still on those P plates, something that might seem ironic given I was being handed the keys to the national side. I know Ricky Ponting was another player who learnt to drive relatively late, but minor sacrifices like that just haven’t seemed important in comparison to doing what I love.