A wrist injury put the Australian legspinner’s career and life in a tailspin. But now he’s slowly getting back on track
Tom Morris02-Dec-2015Do you remember James Muirhead? The fresh-faced wristspinner who fell off the scene faster than he burst on it two summers ago. Ring a bell?At the start of the 2013-14 Australian season, Muirhead was not deemed good enough to warrant a Big Bash contract. By the end of it, he was Australia’s first-choice wristspinner in limited-overs cricket.Nicknamed “Vegemite” for his rosy red cheeks, Muirhead has had a journey not yet a fraction complete. Already the uncertainties, tribulations and utter frustrations of being a professional cricketer have forced him to question the path that, in relative terms, he has only just begun.I must confess I share a close bond with Jimmy. I’ve kept wicket to him, batted with him many times, and trained alongside him. I’ve watched him grow from a supremely confident 3rd XI legspinner at Shane Warne’s old club, St Kilda, to an international cricketer who tumbled back down the ranks again.One week he was playing 3rd XI club cricket on the Ross Gregory Oval, the next, it seemed, he was dismissing Indian maestro Virat Kohli in a World T20 encounter in Dhaka.He’s only 22, but already his career reflects a game of snakes and ladders.Muirhead played the last of his five international T20s last March and, in the 18 months between then and now, his troubles have brewed internally and materialised externally in disturbing fashion. Watching from just 22 yards away, I’ve had front-row seats and at times it has not been pretty. The troubles first started in October 2014.
“I used to think I’d dominate no matter what. Now I know I have to work really hard to compete”James Muirhead
In February that year, an article was published on ESPNcricinfo, titled “The rapid rise of James Muirhead”. Even the man himself now concedes it would be fair to write a story that is the precise mirror image of the original. “I was at rock bottom earlier this year,” Muirhead said last week.”I went to South Africa with Australia and then to the World T20 in Bangladesh. It was an amazing experience. I sat next to Dale Steyn after a game in the change rooms and couldn’t even speak, I was in such awe.”I came home and played a Shield game against NSW at the SCG. That’s when my wrist that I rely on for spin began to ache.”Towards the end of last season, the zip and bounce that had been his forte deserted him. I’d watch in amazement as he would ask club captain Rob Quiney to remove him from the attack. “I’m struggling, bruz,” he’d say before trudging down to fine leg. Confidence shot, he was a shadow of his former self. This happened Saturday after Saturday and game after game for months.Throughout this period, fellow Victorian legspinner Fawad Ahmed was on his way to claiming a competition-high 48 wickets for the season, making it almost impossible for Muirhead to force his way back into the team – even if he did bowl well at club level.”I didn’t really tell anyone about my wrist until it got really bad. It wasn’t one incident, it just got progressively worse the more I bowled. I couldn’t hear the clicking sound in my hand when I let the ball go, so I knew something was wrong. When I bowl well, my wrist clicks and the ball fizzes out – this stopped happening,” he said.”Having no confidence really got to me and I struggled to get out of bed some mornings. I didn’t want to train and I have no doubt I was depressed. It was very difficult times. Everything just spiralled down.”In a short span of time Muirhead went from turning out for St Kilda’s 3rd XI to dismissing batsmen in the World T20•Associated PressCricket clubs can be ruthless places, especially successful ones like St Kilda Cricket Club. From 2000 to 2006, the Saints won five two-day 1st XI premierships and this win-at-all-costs mantra still exists today. Every individual gets analysed, people talk, nobody is spared critical judgement.Success is expected, both individually and collectively. Hardened professionals like Michael Beer, Graeme Rummans, Peter Handscomb, Quiney and Muirhead train alongside school teachers, carpenters and University students. So when Jimmy was struggling, it was natural that people would wonder why.”I couldn’t get the revolutions on the ball and I began to worry about what people were saying about me,” he said.”I’d never cared before, but for some reason now I did and it consumed me. It was as if everyone from the firsts to fourths were looking at me thinking I was shit. I didn’t want to train and I just wanted to quit.”I started to think I might have to find a job even though I knew I had three years left on my state contract. Mentally, I was in a shocking place and I now know I will never be lower than that again.”There was one summer evening where he refused to bowl in the nets – unheard of for someone of his standing. I later found out it was because he was terribly embarrassed. He was bowling a long hop every second ball and being belted out of the net. He’d go and retrieve the ball, put on a brave face, and the same thing would happen again. It must have been demoralising. There was nothing any of us could say that could make him feel better. Physically he was struggling with his wrist, but mentally, he had plummeted to an entirely new low.
“You can see he’s a real natural legspinner. There’s a lot of sidespin on the ball. He gets really big turn. I think that’s got everyone excited”Cameron White
Surgery was initially delayed in the hope that rest would be the cure. It didn’t, so in June 2015, Muirhead went under the knife. The recovery period was six to eight weeks, but in reality he is only just finding his old self again now.”I was in such a bad way mentally because of my bowling,” he said. “I couldn’t understand why one day I would be dipping and ripping the ball, and then a couple of months later I was in pain and was hardly spinning it. Surgery allowed me to refresh and almost start again in some ways.”But to paint a picture of eternal doom and gloom would be to dismiss the journey of fellow twirler Brad Hogg, or to a lesser extent Chris Rogers and Adam Voges. For cricket is a pursuit that often favours the stubborn over the skilful – a fact Muirhead, who has a Perth Scorchers and Cricket Victoria contract, is acutely aware of, following a harrowing 18 months. Like so many before him, he knows he possesses the raw skills. Yet at the elite level, pure talent is nowhere near enough.In many respects it has been his close bond with talismanic chinaman and eternal optimist Hogg that has allowed the western suburbs-raised Muirhead to gain perspective in times of despair.”I work very closely with Hoggy at the Scorchers now and he’s really kept me going through the bad times,” he said.”It doesn’t matter where he is or what time of the day it is, he answers my calls and he’s been exceptionally influential on my life. I actually spoke to him yesterday. He rang me to speak to me about my goals and to see how I was going. Without him I am not sure where I’d be.”I understand now it is not going to be easy. I used to think I’d dominate no matter what. Now I know I have to work really hard to compete.”The other person who he credits with helping halt his rapid slide is Cricket Victoria psychologist Tony Glynn.Glynn, who worked closely with Victoria’s cricketers after Phil Hughes’ tragic death last year, has been spending an hour per week with Muirhead for the past eight months – something the legspinner would have laughed off had he been offered psychological assistance three years ago.In an Ashes tour game in November 2013, Muirhead took the wickets of Alastair Cook (twice), Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen•Getty Images”I would have said, ‘What are sports psychologists for? You don’t even need them. They are a waste of money’,” he conceded. “Now I realise, having experienced the highs and the bad lows, that they are crucial. Tony helps me develop routines, set goals and gives me another person to talk to.”Roger Federer, Adam Scott, Steve Smith, and all these elite athletes have deeply embedded routines. I never thought about it before, but now when I watched these guys play, I see their routine. I didn’t have one but now I do. It allows me to have a default setting for when I play if things go wrong.”When he’s at his pomp, Muirhead’s greatest asset is the wicked revolutions he imparts on the ball. Facing him in the nets, your audible signals are just as important as the visual cues. His legbreak fizzes through the air, the tiny rope on the seam rotating so viciously it creates enough friction to hear quite unmistakably. Probably the only thing more daunting than facing him is keeping to him on a tired wicket.”I’ve stood at slip in the three T20 games he’s played for Australia and you can just see he’s a real natural legspinner of the ball – there’s a lot of sidespin on the ball,” Cameron White said last year. “He gets really big turn. I think that’s got everyone excited, including the people he plays with.”Muirhead, who has played for three Big Bash franchises, does not see himself as the next Shane Warne, despite the early comparisons. He does not aspire to be Stuart MacGill or Yasir Shah, or anyone else, really. As his club and state team-mates will strongly attest, Jimmy just wants to be Jimmy and turn the ball as sharply as his rehabilitated wrist will allow. Last week he played for Victoria’s Futures League team against the ACT at his home ground, the Junction Oval, in a four-day game. Although his figures were modest (one wicket in the first innings), his control was back. “It was a flat deck and was relatively happy with how they came out,” he said. “I’m getting back to where I want to be.”Muirhead has been forced to wade through thick mud. Dirtied and demonised by the terrors in his own mind, he could have thrown in the towel, but he didn’t. If he makes it back to the apex of the cricketing mountain, he will undoubtedly be better for what he has endured. His list of scalps does not include names like Gayle, Pietersen, Duminy, Gibbs and Kohli for nothing.