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Tour of duty for Gilchrist

Source: The Australian - November 07, 2005

HARRY GILCHRIST is not quite four. He has already visited more continents and probably has more frequent flyer points than most people would accumulate in a lifetime.

It is part of what his father, Australia vice-captain Adam Gilchrist, describes as a military-style operation to try to maintain some semblance of family life during the increasingly cluttered travel itinerary of an international cricketer.

"It's trying to achieve the right balance," Gilchrist, a father of two, said before the first Test, in Brisbane.

Fitting in family with elite sport is a constant topic of conversation in the Australian dressing-room.

Of the least enjoyable aspects surrounding international cricket, security threats, poor umpiring, politics and the low standard of cricket all pale into insignificance compared with spending too much time away from home and family.

In a recent survey conducted by the Australian Cricketers' Association of the 25-man national squad, 58 per cent rated missing loved ones as the worst aspect of a game which offers the best players fame and fortune.

As a result Harry Gilchrist had his first plane flight at two weeks of age and his first overseas trip, to South Africa, aged two months. He has toured South Africa twice, the West Indies and this year New Zealand and England with his little sister Annie, who is now 14 months.

As a result Gilchrist was able to celebrate Annie's birthday on the Ashes tour. The presence of his wife, Mel, and children proved relief when the brilliant batsman-keeper had a difficult series, averaging just 22 with the bat as Australia lost the Ashes for the first time in almost two decades.

Gilchrist was particularly annoyed then when he heard some rumblings from outside the team that families were a distraction and partly to blame for the Ashes loss.

How could that be, he wondered, when he has previously had them in South Africa, where he scored a double century and averaged 158, or New Zealand this year, when he averaged 172.

"At the time there were certainly murmurings and whispers around but I never really felt that way," Gilchrist said.

"In the end it is up to the individual to work out what's the right balance for themselves. Me having my family there might suit me but it may not suit someone else.

"It's definitely not an ideal life to have your family on the road all the time. It just wears you down and wears them down. But you do still want to play a part in being a parent and a husband.

"It's not just about seeing the kids either. It's about a bit of quality time with your partner too, which often gets forgotten."

With his rapidly growing son becoming increasingly restless, Gilchrist does not have Mel or his children at a Brisbane Test for the first time since his debut at the Gabba seven years ago.

"Harry is at an age where we want to try to give him a little bit more stability and structure after having pretty much four years on the road," Gilchrist said.

"I know he's not at a crucial school age yet but we're comfortable with giving he and Mel and Annie just a bit more of a routine and a nice home base.

"I'm happy to sacrifice a little bit of time away from them when they may have been here. It gives me peace of mind to ring up and hear that Harry is so happy and settled and they're all going so well at home. Everyone is comfortable.

"I'm not saying what we've done previously was wrong; we've just got tired of it and just feel like we want to pull back a little bit."

In his new book Out of My Comfort Zone, Steve Waugh emphasises how much he missed his family on tour with a tribute at the beginning to his wife, Lynette, and children, Rosalie, Austin and Lillian.

"Of all my achievements, nothing matches the feeling of returning home to my family and the sight of you guys running up the hallway, trying to be the first to jump into my arms," Waugh wrote.

He talks about the pain of leaving on a tour just three weeks after Rosie was born. Of packing an unwashed baby singlet so he would at least have her scent with him.

"For me the best way to overcome homesickness was to find time each week on tour to pull out my family photo albums and immerse myself in them, reflecting on the memories before packing them away and getting back to the flow of cricket," Waugh wrote.

Much has changed in Australian cricket since Waugh made his debut two decades ago, and he was a driving force in ensuring a more family-friendly environment around the team.

When Waugh began, the team was significantly younger and players lived more of a Hollywood lifestyle, staying in flash hotels with all their distractions while families were kept at a distance. It could be easy for a young man to lose touch with reality.

Now, more and more, the players stay in family-friendly accommodation and, with a large number of 30-somethings in the team, there is often the constant reality check of young children who need attending to.

In recent years wives, partners and families have been encouraged to tour, with Cricket Australia paying for some of the travel as part of the memorandum of understanding between CA and the ACA.

It was under Mark Taylor's captaincy in the mid-1990s that things began to change as busier and busier schedules further diminished family life.

"My first tour was the Ashes in 1989 and the conditions of the tour were that the wives, partners and families weren't to join the tour until the last two weeks; that was a five-month tour," recalled Taylor, who married his wife Judy just three weeks before departing.

"During that time wives, partners and girlfriends all came along at various times but they had to find their own accommodation and organise their own travel."

Now as a Cricket Australia board member Taylor continues to encourage the family-friendly approach.

"It certainly has moved on but I think we had to," he said.

"There's one side of you that says 'you're at work' and a lot of people who go to work don't take their wives and partners with them. The other side is that most work doesn't take you away from home six months of the year either.

"It can be unhealthy to be away that long from your family."

Taylor wondered how tough it must have been for the previous generations who caught the ship to England for Ashes tours and were gone most of the year. This was counter-balanced by other years when there were no tours at all.

In the modern age there is always a packed home summer and then at least two overseas tours a year, if not more.

"Touring is now just an extension of living at home," Taylor said.

"That's living in the 21st century where planes can get you to most places and there is better accommodation right across the world. No longer are there many spots where you say 'I'm not taking my wife and family there'. Most places are now very open to families and tourists, apart from obviously the terror threats we hear of. There are no real reasons why wives and families can't go.

"But players and partners have to realise players are there to play cricket. You're there to perform to the best of your ability, and at times you've got to give some of your family away a bit to make sure you're doing what's best for the team."

- MALCOLM CONN