The Shane Warne gem that one Aussie cricket great never forgot
Cricket legend Michael Hussey was desperate to wear the famous Baggy Green but had to wait for his break during an era when Australia dominated between 1999 and 2004.
But ‘Mr Cricket’ got his opportunity to play for Australia at the end of 2005 and joined a team desperate for redemption after watching England lift the Ashes urn earlier that year.
Hussey reflects on the advice Shane Warne told him before his debut and the hype leading up to the 2006/07 Ashes series.
Michael Hussey for PlayersVoice
It was only two years before I had come to accept I would never experience moments like this. I would never play Test cricket, and no matter how many runs I scored in state cricket I would not be invited in to the inner sanctum of the Australian dressing room.
It was when I was dropped by Western Australia at the end of the 2002/03 season that I accepted my chance of playing Test cricket had gone for good as I was now so far removed from the Test side.
I thought I was good enough, but it was my misfortune to be playing at a time when vacancies almost never came up. In the five years of Steve Waugh’s captaincy between 1999 and 2004 only seven players made their Test debuts.
In any other era I would have got in the side, but I had to wait and wait. I was desperate for a baggy green, I did everything I could, and probably went over the top to make them notice me, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime set of players, so there was never an opening.
I was always a very serious character, forever heaping pressure on myself, but when I realised I wasn’t going to play Test cricket a burden was lifted, and I actually started playing better than ever.
At the end of 2005, at the age of 30 I was finally handed that baggy green for my first Test against the West Indies at the Gabba.
I’ll always remember before that first Test Warnie standing in the dressing room toilets in his underpants puffing on a cigarette. He turned to me and said, ‘Huss, I know you’re nervous, but you don’t have anything to prove to us, you deserve to be here mate.’ That meant everything to me.
My long apprenticeship proved to be the making of me, because I was now ready. I had done the hard yards, and knew what to do. I soon accumulated a healthy Test average of over 75 as we won ten of my first 11 Tests. After so long on the outside this was cricketing utopia.
My ultimate dream had always been to play in the Ashes, and the build-up to this series in 2006/07 was incredible; I have never known those levels of interest. The hype seemed to be out of control.
It had come as a shock to the psyche of Australian cricket to lose in 2005, and to see an England captain lift the urn was very difficult.
This was more than just another series. For champion players like Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath nothing else mattered. They were still hurt from 2005. They didn’t want revenge; they wanted redemption.