Two-time Olympic champion Anna Meares has one abiding memory of the elite young cricketers with whom she shared the Australian Institute of Sport’s (AIS) training base in Adelaide back in the early 2000s.
“Some of our training days were long as cyclists,” Meares said. “You’d start early, we’d do double, triple (sessions) … you’d get home, have a shower, you’re absolutely cooked, and all you’d want is a nice meal.
“And I remember by the time we got to the dinner hall, the cricketers had eaten all the food, and we were just pissed (laughs).
“But it was also really cool to have athletes of totally different sports around at the same time, because you got to have totally different conversations.”
Meares shares her memories on ‘Forging Champions’, a documentary that traces the 45-year history of the AIS. Also interviewed are a couple of former Australia cricket captains, Michael Clarke and Shane Watson, who were together at the AIS-backed Australian Cricket Academy (ACA) in 2000.
Back then, Clarke and Watson were just a couple of frost-tipped teens who also happened to represent the future face of Australian cricket.
Clarke hailed from Liverpool, in Sydney’s west. Watson hailed from Ipswich, west of Brisbane. Both were gifted young cricketers immersed in a new world of high performance and big pay cheques, but both were floored by the gap between their sometimes-relaxed training practices and those of the AIS cyclists they rubbed shoulders with.
“Watching them go about their work, I think you could see there was a big gap between how professional they were and where we were,” Clarke smiled. “We could drink, we could go out … we were definitely lazier than they were (laughs).
“I think they would’ve thought: You know what, (cricket) would’ve been a lot easier than cycling.”
Added Watson: “You’d see the cyclists doing the erg(ometer) bikes in the gym and my goodness gracious, they pushed themselves to the limit. The power squats and everything they were doing was something we were nowhere near.
“One of the main things we learnt as cricketers coming in was how to work really hard.”
Watson and Clarke would emerge from the AIS as two of the most committed trainers in the game. With a rule change in domestic cricket that summer that effectively made Academy attendees free agents, the Queensland allrounder headed south for Tasmania and immediately turned teammates’ heads with his work ethic. The diligence of Clarke, meanwhile, revealed itself not only in his batting and fielding practice, but in the way he dealt with a chronic back issue throughout his career via hours of warming up and stretching before he even made it into the nets.
It is a tick over 25 years now since they both finished their time at the ACA – an experience they look back on as something of a finishing school before their full entry into the world of professional cricket.
“The AIS was always something you wanted to be a part of,” Clarke said. “Going to Adelaide was a dream as a young boy – to be around 20 other cricketers with the same dream.
“If you got selected to go to the Academy, I think it played a massive role in making it to the highest level, or certainly in getting the best out of yourself; in the year I went full time, I think there were seven or eight of us who went on to play for Australia.
“Just some of the stuff you learnt … it was an extra level to what you were training and learning in your own state.”
The Clarke-Watson Class of 2000 at the Academy also included Mitchell Johnson, Phil Jaques, Andrew McDonald and Nathan Hauritz – all of whom would go on to play Test cricket in the decade that followed.
Famously in charge of the young cricketers was ACA supremo Rod Marsh, who finished up in the role a year later having overseen a golden generation of young Australian talent.
“I knew (the Academy) was where champions are built,” Watson said. “The best coaches were there, the best facilities. Everything was there to be a world-class performer.
“Rod Marsh knew by (coaching) through the (players’) late teen years, where you could really have an impact, that would then produce a conveyor belt of world-class cricketers.
“I just had in my mind what the stepping stones were to be able to get where I wanted to go, (which was) to play for Australia. First stepping stone was Queensland Under 19s, then it was Australia Under 19s, then it was the Cricket Academy.
“I remember seeing on TV … the biomechanics lab, and everyone just dreamed of being in there and having your technique and everything broken down. I certainly hadn’t done anything with the biomechanics to really break down (his technique or action), especially from a bowling perspective.”
A dozen years after their ACA days, Clarke and Watson were Australia’s captain and deputy respectively. The pair by then had been both opponents and teammates, while their relationship at times strained under the pressure of leading a national side through a state of flux in the early 2010s.
By 2016 they had both called time on their decorated international careers, leaving the game as two-time ODI World Cup winners and much more besides. And far from those lazy early days at the Academy, they had evolved into legends of Australian cricket.
‘Forging Champions’ airs on Channel Nine at 9.30pm on Monday, February 2
Main image also supplied by the AIS
