The Australian dressing room is the last place many expected to see Craig McDermott.
Daniel Brettig17-May-2011Thirteen years ago, Tim May wrote , a “true-ish” story of the Australian cricket team on tour. Names, dates and places were changed to protect the innocent and the guilty, but one character emerged more sharply drawn than most. “Alistair Barterman” read as a thinly-veiled depiction of Craig McDermott, who is portrayed across the tale as a pathologically meticulous fast bowler with a long history of injuries both major and minor. He is ultimately withdrawn from the team when a scorpion bite causes his head to swell to twice its usual size.Flattering it wasn’t, yet May’s portrait carried the essence of truth. McDermott both meticulous and ambitious, carving out a personal sponsorship deal with Bartercard before many players were looking that far ahead. He also launched into a property investment business, Maxen Developments, that became his major focus after he played his last match for Australia in 1996. Within the Australian team he was his own man, respected for his bowling but never quite loved in the way others like Damien Fleming or Jason Gillespie would be. His best friend in the team was Merv Hughes, but then Hughes was everyone’s friend. For such an obviously ambitious character as McDermott, the comparatively basic pursuit of cricket coaching looked about as likely a career path as relationship counselling would be for Shane Warne. Retirement was swiftly followed by riches and real estate.So how exactly did Alistair Barterman evolve into Craig McDermott the bowling coach? Hard times were a catalyst, certainly, causing him to call on the knowledge gained as a cricketer but neglected as a former player. The maturing medium fast of his son, Alister, might also have played a part, as the advice handed down to offspring stirred the thought in McDermott that others might also benefit from his advice. Now he is Australia’s bowling coach at a time when the national selectors are fumbling around in the dark to find a new pace spearhead, not quite sure of where to go exactly for the first time since, well, McDermott’s uncertain early days in the Australian Test team. His return to the fold involved some searching lessons in humility.First, there was an extortion attempt that resulted in embarrassing personal details being aired in the courts. Later a Queensland property bust saw much of McDermott’s interests go up in smoke. He was embroiled in the collapse of his property business at a cost of millions to creditors and declared bankruptcy, selling his home. At the nadir of his business troubles, McDermott was paraded as a financial disaster by Australian tabloid television on Channel Nine, the same network that had once, via PBL, used him as a face of its cricket promotion. In the report he was last sighted ducking questions and escaping an underground car-park in his 4WD, seemingly destined for ignominy and obscurity.At the time his name was becoming a byword for failed investments, McDermott had already begun to chart his rehabilitation. Given a chance by the man who first selected him for Australia, the Centre of Excellence coach Greg Chappell, McDermott was hired on a part-time basis in late 2009. It was something of a probationary post, and a tentative step towards a second chance in cricket after he had kept away for more than a decade since injuries forced his retirement.Gradually, McDermott won the trust and respect of those he worked under at the CoE, including Chappell (since replaced by Cooley) and the manager Belinda Clark. His role grew from occasional to near full-time, albeit at modest rates of pay. The fact McDermott had worked alongside so many of the young bowlers expected to file into the national team over the next few summers gave him a head-start to the senior job that none of the other candidates, Allan Donald included, could offer. Bowlers under McDermott’s tutelage have included Josh Hazlewood, Peter George, James Pattinson, Luke Feldman, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Mitchell Starc and Ben Cutting. Alister McDermott has been a part-time scholar, forging a path into the Queensland state squad.Of particular use to them will be McDermott’s experience as the Australian attack was re-built in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Unsurprisingly, life before Warne rather resembled life after him. Before he arrived the Australians had lacked the once-in-a-lifetime talents they are unable to conjure now, but managed to shape a bowling unit capable of running through all but the very best of batting line-ups. McDermott, Hughes and Bruce Reid (when fit) offered an ideal balance of skills, heights and temperaments. Hughes and Reid acted as foils for McDermott at various times, all moving the ball in various ways and from different angles, whirring down short balls or pitching it up in the expectation of swing. On the 1991 West Indies tour a succession of flights and the recurrence of back gremlins severely affected Reid’s performances, but McDermott stood up in Caribbean climes to be the outstanding fast man on either side.
The fact McDermott had worked alongside so many of the young bowlers expected to file into the national team over the next few summers gave him a head-start to the senior job that none of the other candidates, Allan Donald included, could offer.
Apart from technical knowledge befitting a bowler who possessed one of the more classical actions of the past 20 years, McDermott’s tactical acumen, particularly the ability to judge the right method for the prevailing conditions, is sharp. The final phase of his playing career was speckled with admirable efforts on wickets that were less than helpful – Allan Border’s last Test on a dead Durban pitch in 1994 featured a particularly meritorious spell – and McDermott was also adept at gaining swift and repeated breakthroughs when turf and atmosphere were in his favour. He gleaned 42 wickets at 27.66 from eight Tests at Adelaide Oval, perhaps cricket’s best example of an occasionally helpful but more often punishing surface for a pace bowler.Worthwhile too, of course, are the battle scars of McDermott’s life outside cricket. In the “real world” he aimed to become a big deal, and for a time managed to do so. The subsequent collapse of McDermott’s business means he has plenty of sobering thoughts to offer a generation that now counts dollar signs and Twenty20 contracts almost as readily as baggy green caps. Fellow coach Justin Langer emphasised McDermott’s life outside of the game as a strength, rather than a weakness.”I think he’ll also bring quite a worldliness to the group, because he obviously went away from the cricket scene for some time and had varying degrees of fortune in his business life,” Langer said. “Often young professionals now, they gain this change-room existence where they come in and they become professional cricketers and all they really get to know is the change-room and their team-mates. I think any outside sources or influences who can talk to them about life after cricket and about being a good person off the field, or the different challenges that come with being a professional cricketer and the rewards that come with that, will be valuable.”Over the next 12 months, McDermott faces a task almost as vexing as the saving of a business. The Australian attack ended the Ashes looking so innocuous it might have struggled to bowl out anyone. Mitchell Johnson may be the most explosive of Australia’s bowlers but he is also among the least consistently reliable, while there is no stand-out new ball pair given that Doug Bollinger and Ben Hilfenhaus have succumbed to injuries and indifferent form. McDermott says he is intent on looking forward – “it is part of my charter” – but also has ideas about how to remedy what he saw against England. Most of those will be grounded in hard work and sound planning, to master the many skills of fast bowling and then ensure they are repeatable under the fiercest of pressure.Given the widely held view that bowlers decide Test matches, it is possible to conclude that McDermott walked out of the Australian dressing room as Alistair Barterman and returned as the holder of the most vital coaching job going. Australia sorely needs a return on its investment in him.
