Mr Cricket by Michael Hussey Page A

might as well just have a good time.’
    Luckily for me the pitch was beautiful for that next game and I got away to a decent start. I followed Bob’s advice and played with total freedom, as if without a care in the world. I scored 96 that day and straight away I felt my shoulders relax. At least now they could see that I could bat a bit. Using Bob’s advice became the launching pad for the rest of my season.
    Even though it was a while before I scored a century – more than two months – by season’s end I’d piled up 2055 county runs. If you get 1000 runs in a county season, you’ve done well. My goal was to get 1000. To score 2000 was huge. Among my knocks that season was my first triple century, 329 not out against Essex. I also scored plenty of one-day runs, which was a part of my game I desperately wanted to improve.
    But Bob wasn’t to last at the club. When our results started to taper off again the board decided he should be sacked. I was on the club’s cricket committee, which answered to the club’s top administrators, but I didn’t get a say in the decision. The board members called a meeting to discuss the coaching role and myself and another clubman, Duncan Wild – who they knew were huge supporters of Bob’s and would stick up for him through thick and thin – were not invited. Through a majority vote they sacked him without us knowing.
    MY FIRST TRIPLE CENTURY, 329 NOT OUT AGAINST ESSEX.

    Granted, we hadn’t been playing well but it wasn’t Bob’s fault. It couldn’t be easy coaching a team in which one player is romantically involved with another player’s partner, for instance. There were a lot of things going wrong and Bob should not have been held entirely responsible. I believe he was made the scapegoat and I was furious that I didn’t get the chance to defend him or at least discuss it with the board. The people who voted him out were not part of the playing group and they had little understanding of how the team operated.
    After Bob left, the club replaced him with the former South Africa and Australia international Kepler Wessels. Kepler was very much a disciplinarian, a bit of a dictator at times and we were all on edge around him. By now I was captain and, though I was disappointed Bob wasn’t there, there was a positive aspect to it because I felt that the players needed a kick along. They were pretty slack, they whinged a lot and wouldn’t
do things properly. I knew it was part of my job as captain to instil a better attitude, but I didn’t know how to do that without losing the friendship of the players. Kepler quickly got them into line. He told them a few home truths straight away, knocked some heads around and, sure enough, we had an amazing season.
    Kepler had an aura about him and we’d heard the stories about how tough he could be. The first hint of what lay ahead came on his very first day at the club. One of our players, Graeme Swann – a fantastic cricketer who had an uncanny ability to impersonate people, whether it was imitating people’s batting styles, accents or mannerisms. Kepler came up to Swanny and said: ‘I heard you do impressions.’ Swanny replied: ‘Yeah, yeah! Do you want me to do one of you?’ To which Kepler said deadpan: ‘If you do one of me, I’ll belt the shit out of you.’ The boys had a bit of a laugh about it afterwards, but it was a very clear message that whenever Kepler was around, you had to shut up and not put a foot out of place.
    Dealing with Kepler behind closed doors was no easier, especially for me as captain. I was still lacking confidence and couldn’t work out how best to stand up to him without getting flustered or making him angry. Luckily our assistant coach, Nick Cook, helped me out a lot in that department. Nick, a left-arm orthodox spinner who had played for England, took a leading role in the running of the