Ashton Agar - Ordineroli Speaking

#OrdineroliSpeaking Cricketer Ashton Agar's Test debut was a dream - he made 98 in the Ashes at just 19 years of age. What followed, was the toughest period of his life. For the first time, Ashton reveals the full extent of his mental health issues and how they took over his life and career.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Ordinarily speaking, I was doing some extraordinary things, but I
felt incredibly ordinary.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Takes time.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Hello and welcome to this episode of ordinarily Speaking. I'm
narrowly meadows. My guest this episode is cricketer Ashton Ager.
Ashton is known for his big, broad smile, the kid
that made ninety eight on debout batting at number eleven
in the Ashes, he was only nineteen. Earlier this year,

(00:47):
he was named Australia's Men's T twenty International Player of
the Year. But behind the success, Ashton is a man
who has dealt with mental health issues and what he
describes as chronic This is the first time Ashton has
spoken about the full extent of his struggles. As he speaks,
he relives moments physically shadow batting on his couch or

(01:10):
closing his eyes to recall his feelings more accurately. Ash
is a deep thinker, and in this episode he reveals
just how bad those thoughts got in his darkest days.
If this episode is triggering for you, please ask for help.
Lifeline and Beyond Blue are just a couple of places
you can go As you listen to this chat, try

(01:31):
to keep an open mind, because, as Ashton admits, himself.
He's a little fearful of how it will be received.
We caught up in his house in Perth. I hope
you enjoy the chat well, Ash, Thanks so much for
spending some time with me. I want to go back

(01:54):
first to your incredible debout playing test cricket for Australia
back in twenty thirteen, because it's one of those stories
that's kind of gone down in folklore in Australian cricket.
You weren't even supposed to be a part of that tour,
I believe. Give me a bit of background about that.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, it's a hell of a story. It's super wild
ride for me. The background is I was picked on
an Australia a tour. You know, after playing maybe five
Shield games in the back half of my first season
for WA in the twenty twelve thirteen season, went on
that a tour. You know, played the tour, did reasonably well,
and had played well for WA before that. All of

(02:34):
a sudden, on the last night before I was about
to leave, I remember being on the phone to Maddie
and we were all excited because I was coming home
and everything was looking really good. Get a call from
John in Verity and I was like, why's Invers calling me?
Like this is strange, and he goes mate. In his voice,
I think anyone that knows Invers, he's got this wonderful

(02:54):
speaking voice is very expressive, and it was a really
cool phone call. Yeah, Ashton, you're staying And it kind
of paus through a bit and I was like, what
do you mean. We're keeping you on for the first
couple of ASHES tests And I was like, oh my god,
that's crazy, and he goes, well, there's no guarantees that
you'll play or anything like that. It's probably a bit
more for development and to have you around the group.

(03:16):
But you're staying on. And there's a couple others in
the same boat. I think one of them was Steve Smith.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Actually not bad Company.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, not bad company at all. So that was a
massive surprise at the start. So you're nineteen, yeah, nineteen
nineteen and just loving it like it was a really
fun environment to be around.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
You've got a smile on your face, just yeah, it's
an exciting time.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
And then well, I guess it all seemed to happen
from there. We go out one night, the whole team.
We're in Wooster and we have a tour game coming
up there in a couple of days. I should probably
say a few more days. Maybe we shouldn't have been
out so close to the game.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
But was eight years ago, Yeah, a long time ago.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's okay, But importantly it was everyone and we're out
at one bar and Michael Clark came and sat down
next to me. He goes, you ready to go, youngster,
and I kind of said to him, yeah, like let's go.
Let's go to the next place. I thought he meant
like the next bar wherever we were going. It's like, yeah, sure,
it's Michael Clark. I'll say yes, mate, and he goes, no, no, no,

(04:26):
for next week. And I knew that next week for
the end of the next week was the first Test,
and that hit me like a ton of bricks. It
felt like time had slowed down in that moment, when
I'm sure it all happened very quickly and naturally as
a nineteen year old, I just said, yep, yep, ready
to go. And he said, basically, the only way you're
not playing the first Test is if you have a

(04:46):
horror game against Wistera and he goes he pretty much
just said, yeah, you're too good for that to happen.
So you know, we're backing you in.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
So you're saying, yeah, right to go. How are you
feeling inside.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Though, Yeah, my heart's racing. All of a sudden, you
get those game nerves that you get before any any
cricket game you play.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Not helped by the amount you probably drank that.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Not it was. It was pretty early on in the night,
so that was a good thing. I think I was
able to think pretty clearly about what was to come
and it all became really real. I think that was
the moment that being part of an Australian cricket team
or a cricket setup became real and he actually felt that, yeah,

(05:27):
this is this is going to happen. Really cool night,
like so cool to have the captain of the Test team,
Michael Clark, a guy who you know, I still look
up to, you know, I remember watching his debut when
I was in I think I was in primary school.
I think I was in year six when he made
one hundred and fifty. For him to come up and
just support you and believe in you like that and

(05:49):
kind of look after you in a way give you
a lot of warning that this is what is probably
going to happen like that's that's really impressive, especially in
that sort of setting. So it made me feel really
comfortable straight away.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
So you go on, you play batting at number eleven,
You come out and you score that famous ninety eight
on taboo batting at number eleven.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny talking about it.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
It's still you shake your head as or you still
don't quite believe that that actually happened yourself.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, it happened, and exactly right. I didn't expect it
to go like that. I didn't know what I expect.
I think the beauty is. I didn't have any expectations
going out there, walking out there. I was sitting in
the rooms. Ashton Turner was there. He was with the
group for the first couple of tests, and you know,
he's one of my best friends, and we were sitting
watching Grahame Swan Bowl. You know, he was our favorite

(06:43):
off spinner at the time. We're both spin nuffies. So
we're going, what do you reckon watch I do to
this bowl of that ball? He goes, mate, I go
and smack him like this is our aspects, very cut
and dry. Just go for it, mate. Anyway, all of
a sudden, it's my turn to bat, and he was
pretty much just looked at me and said good luck, mate,
and all the boys gave me a pat on the
back and I walked out there. And walking out there,

(07:05):
the crowd, the noise was incredible. It felt like a
wave of noise going from side to side across the ground.
The Barmie Army were going bananas. I think we were
nine for one hundred and seventeen, so they're in a
pretty commanding position. I was just really happy to hit
my first ball, survive my first ball, nudge my first

(07:26):
one into the covers I think for one off Graham Swan,
and then all of a sudden I just got into
my innings and it all just seemed to happen really naturally.
From the ball just seemed to look bigger and bigger.
I knew exactly where my family was sitting the whole time.
You know, I was looking at them pretty much every
single ball, after every ball, or before every ball that
I faced. And it was a crazy day, but one

(07:50):
I'll never forget.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
And they literally only just arrived in time for the
Baggy Green presentation, didn't they They were pretty much running across
the oval to get there in time.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Because I told them on the main training session, so
two days out from the game, but really like a
day and a half because it was the evening time
in England, you know, Buff and Rod Marsh walked up
to me and they said you're in go and call
your parents and that that was crazy. I went and
called them straight away and that you know, they're all
in tears, as families are when they're really proud of you.

(08:21):
My brothers are screaming, you know, in excitement, so stoked.
You know, Mum can't talk. Dad can hardly talk. And
then we're like, shit, we need to book some flights
real fast. And so they got on a plane within
a matter of hours really to land in London, get
straight in the taxi, go straight to knots from the airport.

(08:41):
They're scrambling trying to open the suitcase. I think they
couldn't open the lock on the suitcase. They thought the
pass code was nine nine nine, but apparently it was
six six six. So this is what Will has told
me a couple of days ago on the phone. I
didn't know that detail. They run out on the ground
and just make my bag of green presentation. Awesome. Yeah,
one of the great moments seeing them running out on

(09:04):
the ground, you know, while I'm at Trent Bridge and
we're all in a circle waiting for them. Yeah, that
was the best.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
So when did you know you were on?

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, there's one shot. I played a drive down the
ground off James Anderson. I saw the ball really clearly.
I can still see it now if I close my eyes,
I can still see exactly how it looks.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
And I love how cricketers literally shuto back this podcasts
like they play every shot. So are you still in
the middle.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Oh, it's a great. Yeah, it's a feeling. I think
you take yourself back and you know exactly how it feels.
I think I've watched it a lot of times as well,
because I often go back to that when.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
I is that right, when you've got a bit of
self down.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, I love this.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
I've had a couple of cricketers tell me this that
they go on to YouTube and basically watch their own
highlights to get that feeling.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Back all the time, all the time.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
How many times you reckn you watch.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
The ninety eight like I usually stop at a like
well before the end, sort of parts. I'll watch a
couple of shots, you know, but it's more just to
see how I was setting up, Because looking back on that,
I was like, gee, I was setting up really nicely
at the crease. So I almost try and get back
to that all the time. But I knew I was
on when I hit that drive down the ground off
James Anderson copped a mouthful from a few of the

(10:19):
English players. You know, they're trying to make life pretty
uncomfortable for me out there as a nineteen year old kid.
But from that moment, I was like, I'm just going
to watch the ball and play every ball on its merits,
and if I see it there, I'm going to hit it.
And lucky enough, I had a great anchor at the
other end in Philip Hughes.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
That in itself makes this so much more special. I
feel like, in hindsight, knowing what happens to have that
moment with hughesy must be huge.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Huge, so big. I'll never forget his face. It's impossible
to forget, you know. I always do. When I'm trying
to remember something, I always close my eyes. If I
close my eyes, I can picture his face, like behind
his grill, like I remember exactly how his helmet looked,
exactly how his shirt looked out there when we were

(11:07):
standing in the middle of the pitch and he's coming
up to me and he would say things like next ball.
Every ball he said that, like next ball, next ball.
He kept me so present and in that moment, and
I think if I didn't have that there, who knows
what might have happened. I probably would have got caught
up in the excitement and tried to play even more

(11:28):
shots and got out a lot earlier. But he just
kept me in the moment. To have a guy of
his caliber there, like his experience, his skill still very
young at that stage, but he'd played a lot of
cricket and made a lot of hundreds, so he knew
what it took to perform at that level. And he
was always saying It was quite funny because he had

(11:49):
a close relationship with Justin Langer, and he'd come up
and with a very serious face, he'd be like, think
of Lang, Think of Lang. You know what would Lang do?
And he caught him Lang, So how he's folk? Yeah,
think a Lang, Think a Lang. And I remember laughing
the first time he said that. I was like, yeah,
good call, you know, good call. And because jayl was
all about watching the pall as hard as you can

(12:11):
and just focusing on that ball only and the next
one and repeating that process. And that's exactly what I did.
But to share such a special moment in my life
with Phil, he's obviously not with us now. Yeah, I'm
so grateful for that.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
Is it right? He was a bit of a hero
of yours as well, even though he was still quite
young himself.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, he was a massive hero of mine. I have
no shame in saying that I had a poster of
him playing wild cut shot in New South Wales kid
using his green cooker barra bat on my wall. Yeah,
through high school probably, I reckon. I was up there
for a couple of years and he must have been
so young when that photos. Taking him on reflection now,

(12:51):
he was so good at such a young age. And
my brothers and I, my brother Will in particular, who
batted a bit like him. He was his absolute hero.
So we love the way he played and we loved
the way he went about his cricket. And Will actually
has one of Phil's bats. Piel gave me a bat
during that a tour I remember giving it to Will,
and Will treasures that. You know, he was very sad,

(13:13):
as everyone was when Phil passed, but he treasures that
bat there. It's probably his most prized possession.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
So you end up having that incredible innings and what
a moment in a young man's life. And then the
next test tell me a bit about that and what happened.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, the next test was really interesting. I had ripped
up my finger, my bowling finger a bit bowling with
the Duke Sports that I never really bowled with before,
so I was trying to find a way, a new
way to hold the ball. I could feel that my
action was off, and I was trying to work out
what it was. I was desperately trying to work out
what it was at training. As I said before, I'd

(13:52):
played maybe seven or eight first class games up to
this point, young in terms of a cricket age and
the amount of experience I'd had, So I'm really fighting
to save my bowling or get back to my best,
not even knowing how I'd got there in the first place.
I had no blueprint. I just picked up a ball
and bowled, and I didn't know why it was good.
I just knew that it was good at certain times.

(14:13):
So that was a really uncomfortable feeling and it made
me a little bit worried. What followed from that was
a very average bowling performance, like from myself, and I
was really flat about that because this was a Lord's Test.
I'd met the Queen at the start of the Test,
you know, everyone had spoken so much about what an
amazing experience and amazing ground Lords is and I hated it.

(14:38):
You know, I hated that Test match because I knew
I was so much better than what I was putting out.
It's just a horrible feeling when you're fighting in a
Test match. You're trying to get something back. It's too
far gone at that point. So we lost and I
was dropped the next Test at Manchester, and I remember
breathing the greatest sigh of relief because I was like,

(14:59):
all right, really need to do some work on my
bowling here and actually learn a little bit about what
makes me the cricketer that I am.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
Because that's the interesting thing, because the public just saw
this amazing story, you know, ninety eight on daboot, but
you're actually picked for your bowling, you know, and to
not deliver in that space in that second Test must
have been tough.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, that was really tough because I bowled quite well
in the second innings of the first Test. I got
my first couple of wickets and that was better, Like
getting my first wicket was better than getting that ninety eight.
Like I promise you, I was so happy, total joy,
screaming all the boys ruffling my hair that I had
back then.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
You love that you just touched hair and went on
and it's gone.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, you know it was Alistair Cook Michael Clark, big
one handed diving catch at first slip. You know that
that was the best moment of that whole Test, really
for myself. So yeah, I guess everyone saw all the
the high of the ninety eight, a couple of wickets,
and then for me what felt like probably the biggest

(16:03):
low of my cricketing career, which was Lord's which was
supposed to be this amazing experience that I just really
didn't enjoy it all. Yeah, and then when I finally
did get told, I was dropped. Like I said, I
was relieved.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
So, like I say, you've got the high, this massive
high social media is sort of coming about and everyone's
going nuts on social media. This Ashton Ager kid with
the massive smile, and then you get dropped. You come
back to Australia and speaking to your brother and you're
now fiance. Mad's heading into this podcast. They sort of
say that that was a pretty bloody tough time for

(16:38):
you to come down afterwards.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, and I've tried to work out whether it was
the come down from that or what it was, but
I remember things just started to slip. That sort of
felt like things just started to slip, and I didn't
feel like myself. I just knew something wasn't right. And
for the remainder of twenty thirteen and then especially twenty fourteen,

(17:04):
that's when I started to experience a really strange time
where I could feel that something was happening to me.
I didn't know what it was, and I didn't know
why I was feeling the way that I was. But
it was like I was just watching it happen and
letting it happen, and I felt like I had no
control over that. So it was a bit scary.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
What were you feeling?

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Initially, I thought maybe I just need to go home,
Maybe I just really missed my.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Family back in Victoria.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, I started worrying about everything. I started worrying about
my God, I'm spending all of this time away from them.
What if something happens to one of them and I've
missed out on this. What if something happens to Mom
and Dad? What if something happens to Will or Wears?
And I was getting really anxious about that. I just
always felt like I was running out of time. From
then on, it probably developed into frustration, then in to

(18:00):
flat out sadness, like deep sadness, And like I said,
I didn't know why this was happening, And I think
a lot of people probably think it was coming off
such a high with ashes and everything like that and cricket,
but really cricket was always felt like this absolute release

(18:22):
and it was a time I could just play and
totally be myself. So it wasn't It was never the cricket.
But yeah, maybe that big emotional roller coast, so maybe
that played apart, But there was certainly a transition, yeah,
from that frustration to sadness to just isolating myself and
starting the journey of trying to work out what's happening

(18:43):
in my own head, not letting anyone else in on it,
not wanting anyone to worry about me, particularly my family.
So I really kept it all in and it just
seemed to get a bit a bit worse.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
How did it manifest its self in your day to
day life, be a cricket or at home?

Speaker 1 (19:04):
I was talking less and less. I was really irritable.
I just was never there. I was never able to
concentrate or really give myself to any situation. It's like
my mind was always in this other place or it.
Like I said, it felt like I was above myself
looking down watching something happen to me, just watching yourself

(19:26):
kind of just fade away, and it just kind of
feels like your loving, fun, energetic soul just gets sucked
right out of you. And you feel all of these things.
So you feel all of these emotions of when you
just want to cry, you don't want to talk, you

(19:47):
don't want to go outside, you don't want to eat.
You know, you feel all of these things, and then
at the same time, you feel just so numb. So
you feel everything and nothing at the same time. And
that's one of the strangest feelings I remember feeling for
the first time. So I knew there was something going on,
but because I probably never told anyone about it. I

(20:08):
let that affect my life and situations outside of when
I was just with myself, you know, So I think
it probably moved on into my cricket a little bit.
The following season, you know, late twenty thirteen twenty fourteen season,
we had a horrible time of it. Not because I
was hating cricket, but just because I just couldn't do it.

(20:29):
I could not give the energy or the commitment that
I needed to to perform at a professional level. I
just did not want to move. Or I'd just decide
that I'd just stay in bed for a little while,
and that'd turn into hours and hours and hours. I
remember I'd get home from training some days and I
would maybe sometimes have some food that was there. I'd

(20:51):
have a shower and get changed, and I'd probably just
like hop in a bed and think. And this would
be like early afternoon, and then it'll be dark all
of a sudden, like so quickly that would happen, and
you just felt so crap because you're like, what have

(21:11):
I done? Then you're really unkind to yourself and you're like,
why have I just wasted away my whole day? But
you do it again and again. You know, sometimes that
would last for a week, or there'd just be little
periods where that would happen, And each time that would happen,
it probably just felt a little bit worse.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
How to affect your relationship with Justin Langer, who was
the WA coach at the time.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, we started. I started being quite argumentative. I think
small things would make me really angry. I think I
was starting to look at life a little bit differently,
and I just decided I wasn't going to agree with
a lot of things. That's probably how it looked from

(21:57):
his perspective, especially. I remember day he called me into
his office and he said, mate, what's going on? Like?
Am I the enemy all of a sudden? You know,
I'm trying to help you, but what's happening. You seem
to keep, you know, disagreeing or fighting with everything that
I say. And I was just angry and frustrated, and yeah,

(22:18):
I absolutely I just broke down, like in his office
and I was like, yeah, something's wrong. I don't know.
I'd remember just saying I don't know, and he was
just gone, what's wrong, man, I'm just saying I don't know.
I had no idea, So that was really difficult because

(22:38):
it was affecting the thing that I love the most,
which is my cricket, being around my teammates and my
life at home, like my relationship with Maddie, my relationship
with Perth. Really at the time, I was kind of
just getting rid of it all. I just wanted to
go back to Melbourne because I thought, well, maybe that'd
make me feel a bit better. But really it didn't
do much at all.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
When you say argumentative with jol, we're literally having arguments
like our net sessions and those sorts of things.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think as a nineteen or
twenty year old, played.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
A couple of tests and just thought I'll take him off.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
That's maybe that's how I looked for some people. But
I think the guys that knew me and who'd probably played,
you know, would come up playing junior cardials against each
other and maybe some under nineteen stuff for Australia, you know,
Cam Bancroft, Ash Turner, Joel Parris. These guys are probably
thinking what is going on with that? That's not him

(23:33):
at all, you know, quite a relaxed, easy going and
an imperson that loves playing cricket. All of a sudden,
I was at training not wanting to talk and having
these stupid arguments because I just would decide I didn't
agree with something, And I think that was just the
way of letting something out, you know. Reflecting on that,

(23:55):
that was it was like I saw this opportunity to
release some of the emotion that had built up inside
of me that I had kept inside and not told
anyone about, and that I was absolutely fighting with and
trying to work out. That was my release and that's
a poor way to deal with it. And I wish
it didn't happen that way, but it did. But it

(24:16):
only strengthened my relationship with Jail. But I had a
long way to go from, you know, those years twenty
thirteen twenty fourteen in particular.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
How do you reflect upon twenty fourteen?

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, it's not something I like doing very much, and
I find it difficult because I pretty much can't remember it.
And that's really scary.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
You mean you literally can't remember.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, that's why it's scary. I can't remember like the
order of events of things that happened in twenty fourteen,
when it just felt like a year that totally spiraled
out of control. Yeah, I remember I went home at
one stage. I can't really remember exactly when that was.

(25:02):
I can't remember what I did when I was back
in Perth. It's just all jumbled up in my mind
and it's really horrible, and the brain does some really
funny things there. You know. There was obviously a lot
of noise and a lot of chaos going on in
my mind at that time for me not to be
able to piece it together or remember anything, no matter

(25:29):
how much I try, I just cannot remember what really happened.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
In hindsight. Do you think you would depressed?

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah? I think so. Yeah at times, Yeah, I think
if I wasn't. It certainly felt like that when I'm
able to describe it as an out of body experience
where you just watch, where you can feel something happening,
and then it's like you're watching yourself and you just
flat out let it happen, and you sit with it
and you feel every single bit of it, and then

(25:58):
you feel so numb. Having read about it a little bit,
spoken to other people, heard other people, I don't really
know what else it could have been at that stage,
and for a fair chunk of that year, Yeah, it
was pretty horrible.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
You and Mad's even broke up for a little bit,
didn't you. That's how bad it got.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, absolutely, by no fault of her. It was just
getting I was just getting rid of everything. I was
totally isolating myself. Everything felt like so much of an effort.
The simplest of task, like listening to music in the car, like,
I'd get frustrated. I'd just turn it off. It'll be
too much noise, simple conversations, I'd just get frustrated and

(26:44):
short because I just couldn't listen to it because there
was so much thinking and so much going on in
my head that I couldn't give any attention to anything,
and I think particularly to a relationship. It was actually
just way too hard. I could not do it. It
was totally unfair on her. But what was really unfair
is I just never let anyone in on it, so

(27:05):
no one really knew. So maybe everyone else thought it
was them, maybe everyone thought they were doing something wrong, But.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
So you weren't getting help at all.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Nah, not at all. People knew something was going on.
People would ask me, how are you going, mate? You know,
and you know, when someone else knows that there's something wrong,
you know, they're going, oh, have you been feeling you know,
you've been a bit quiet, and you're thinking, oh, gee,
I don't have to smile all the time. But you
realize you haven't smiled in ages, and that's who you are.

(27:34):
So I refused it, I think because I didn't want
to put my burden onto them what felt like this
huge weight on my shoulders. I didn't want to put
that on their shoulders. I felt really guilty about that.
And I've always kind of had that in me, where
I've tried to do things for myself and work things
out for myself. But in that situation, as I've learned now,

(27:57):
as you go through this journey, that's the worst thing
you can possibly do.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Do you wish you asked for help sooner?

Speaker 1 (28:06):
I wish I had listened or acted on people who
offered help, you know, or gone back to them and said, yeah,
you were right, there is something wrong.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Tell me about your maiden first class century.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
M That's a probably really important point in this journey
for me. We were playing in Tazzy and I don't
I don't know if anyone. I don't even know if
I've told this story or not. So it's pretty big yeah,
playing in Tazzy and I made a hundred. It's a

(28:48):
pink ball game, you know, as you do you make
a hundred, you feel amazing and you raise the bad
and that was great. But then I remember in the
we were bowling. See what I mean when it gets
jumbled up in my head. I can't remember if this
was before I'd made the hundred or after I had

(29:11):
made the hundred, but I was bowling it over and
this is the first time it had ever hit me
on a creet field and I was bowling, bowed a
couple of balls, and I was frustrated, nothing to do
with the ball. I'd bowled a couple of ice balls.
Then I was getting real it, just like really sad.

(29:32):
Bowled another ball, like walking back to my mIRC, like
closing my eyes, just like trying to fight this feeling. Off.
Bled another ball and I could just feel like a
tear like running down the side of my eye, and
I was like, oh, this is not good, and I
just walked off. I remember through the ball to Ogsy,

(29:56):
I got my hat. This is after the OVID finished
and I walked off. I just walked off, didn't say
anything to anyone, and I just walked straight off the
ground and just sat in the race and cried. And
that was horrific because it didn't cricket through. Any time

(30:17):
that I'd felt that way was always like this beautiful
distraction where I wasn't in my own head, you know,
But this over it was that numb sad, really sad feeling,
no anxiety, just sadness and just darkness. That's all it

(30:42):
felt like. And I walked off the ground and I
was in tears, and Nick Jones' physio came down. I
remember he called up Angie Bain, who was our PDM
at the Whacko at the time, amazing lady who had
tried her absolute best to help me because she'd seen
that there was something wrong, and she was on the
phone and I was sort of chatting, and I just
remember kind of sobbing really and just saying, I don't know,

(31:04):
I don't know, like I don't know what's happening. I
can't describe it. There's no reason for this, it is
just happening. And it just felt like it was totally
out of control and it felt like something had total
control over me. Yeah, so that was a horrible moment. Yeah,
that wasn't very nice at all. I really enjoyed making
my hundred, but I remember sitting back and thinking about

(31:27):
it at the end of the game, like, you shouldn't
be feeling like this after such a good time.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
What did your teammates end up saying to you? Did
they ever ask you or did they assume you're injured
or what?

Speaker 1 (31:36):
No, they I actually don't really know what they were told,
but I think they knew that there was just something wrong,
like I wasn't going too well, but I'd kept a
lot from them, so I think they just saw me
just sitting in this kind of dark sort of room,
like in the rooms in Tazzy there was like the
change room and there was this other little room, and

(31:56):
I was just kind of sitting there. I don't remember
being quite embarrassed as they walked in, you know, for lunchtime,
and they were walking past, and then you know, couple
gave me a hard or a couple gave me a
pat on the back, and I felt embarrassed because I
was like, fuck, I I don't want anyone to see
me like this. But at that stage, I actually couldn't
control it. Yeah, I hated that. I hated that so

(32:20):
much because I had no control over it, and I
don't really remember what I did about it. I didn't
really do much about it. I chatted to and quite
a bit after that would catch up a bit and
try and talk through it and try and learn about it. Basically,
I remember one day feeling pretty good and just being like, yeah, no,

(32:40):
I'm sweet, I'm all good, And that's kind of what
i'd tell everyone when I felt that way. I'd have
a really average moment, and then all of a sudden,
the next day you feel good again, and you think
you're fine, or you tell everyone else you're fine because
you don't want them to worry, and it just keeps
repeating yourself that way.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
How long did this happen for?

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, those moments didn't happen too often, they were just
really bad when they did. Twenty fourteen was probably the
longest stint of the real sadness, numb feeling that read
its head again that day at Bell Reeve. After that,
I wouldn't say it was consistent. I would just live

(33:23):
really normally, and then I would have periods of time
where I wasn't able to give much of myself, and
then that would again come into my cricket, and then
there are a couple of times where I had to
have a bit of a break and I think, you know,
you see players having a bit of time off now,

(33:45):
and you know we've seen it with Moses, with Snick, Madison, Wilbakovski.
I'm so proud of them because and in a way,
I'm really happy. I'm proud of myself for stepping back
sometimes because it's not always the cricket. Everyone looks at
it from the outside. They say, oh, you know, the

(34:05):
cricket's too much for them, or you know, they can't
deal with the pressure or the expectation. It has nothing
for me. It has nothing to do with cricket at all.
I just it would be so unfair for me to
try and play at a professional, elite standard. It's unfair
on the team for me to do that, because it's

(34:27):
like they're playing with one less player. Because when I'm there,
I don't want to be there when I'm playing like that,
because I just can't. There's too much happening in my head.
It's sapping all of the energy out of me, and
I just cannot give enough. And if you can't give
your best self, that's when you need to take a
step back.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
You're listening to ordinarily speaking with Ashton Ager. So your
brother Will tells me about a story I think around
sort of that twenty fourteen twenty five fifteen time of
you coming back to Victoria for a visit and I
think you're at your auntie's house for a function or
a barbecue or something, and he says that you kind
of lost your call. And that was when he and

(35:12):
he's one of, you know, pretty much your best mate
with Wehres, and he that stands out in his mind
of there's something not quite right with my brother.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, we were up at my auntie's like their holiday
house in Victoria, and I was with Will and Weres
and Mad was there as well, and I snapped at
him and I said something really mean that I would
never say or and I was immediately like so regretful
and so sad. And it was kind of like the

(35:44):
moments of where I'd argue, you know, I have a
run in with Jail at training or anyone. It was
like another one of those moments where I released this
emotion that it's just so damaging, like and it probably
gets more and more damaging when you think about it.
The more you let it go, the more room there
is for something to go wrong. And that was one

(36:06):
of those moments. I remember just being like, oh my god,
this is my brother, Like you can't do that to
someone you love so much, you know, and like and
because Willan wears you know, they have my absolute best friends,
Like they're the best. I'm so close with them, I
love them so much, I'm so protective of them, and
I'll do anything for them so too. When you like
that moment when I said something to him or snapped

(36:29):
at him, it's so out of character and for me
to be so sad and regretful afterwards, I think he
was like, holy shit, Like that's not Ash at all,
because he's only seen me as his big brother, you know,
and how I am and how I was most of
the time when these moments weren't there, I was just Ash,

(36:52):
He's big brother. That was just love life. But I
think it shows that you have to do something about
it as fast as you can. You have to tell someone,
you have to talk about it, otherwise it takes hold
of you and it can do some damaging things.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
You've still managed to play quite a bit of cricket
for Australia over these years. How did you manage it
and how did you navigate your way because particularly when
you're away for a really long time, you know a
lot of the time you're in the squad, but not
necessarily playing like that in itself is quite challenging, and
even though you say it's not cricket, the compounding nature
of that to me as an outside it would be

(37:27):
quite intense.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yeah, I've managed to play a lot of cricket in
the meantime, like I keep saying, for most of this time,
Like I really enjoyed that, and I've enjoyed my life
a lot in between, and I've been very happy, but
those moments kept popping up. I was away for quite
a while with the Australian team and we had our

(37:49):
home summer here and I was on tour. I didn't
play a game, but I was on tour the whole time,
and I've been away for a long time before that.
And then we were playing a game at Opta Stadium
and the same thing happened. I wasn't very emotional at all,
but I was absolutely not there. So it was Wavers,
New South Wales. There's only a couple of years ago,
and everyone knew it was like really obvious that and

(38:13):
it just came across that I just didn't care. And
I think guys thought that I just didn't give a
shit or just had had an af you know, or
maybe thought I was above it, which has never been
the case for me. I just couldn't give what I
wanted to give into that game. And that's just how
it looks when you stopped talking. You're out there and

(38:39):
you just can't do your job properly because you have
nothing left. And I think from that point on is
when I probably started to think a bit more about
doing something about it, because I'd had a long period
of time before that, So this is probably twenty eighteen.
I'd had a really good period like twenty seven, twenty sixteen, seventeen,

(39:02):
where I'd felt great, absolutely fine, like and I had
had no incidence. Life was awesome, and then all of
a sudden, out of nowhere, you get this massive reality
check and it has a big impact on you and
your team and potentially the team season because it's a
really important game and you reflect and the same thing happens.

(39:23):
You're sad about it. You're immediately regretful, it's just the
same pattern.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
Because you look uncomfortable when you talk about like you
look uncomfortable reflecting on yourself in that moment.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, because it's disappointing. Like you, it's just you don't
want to do that to anyone, you know, you don't
want your own troubles to affect anyone else, and you
naturally feel pretty guilty about that. So yeah, I hate
thinking about it. I don't really like talking about it
very much. But it's kind of important how to do

(39:59):
because I think there will be a lot of people
that to feel this way or feel that way sometimes
who also feel like they don't want to put this
burden on someone else, and I don't want them, you know,
to make the same mistakes that I have of just
letting it go for a little bit too long.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
So you end up taking a week or two away
from the game. In twenty eighteen, how bad was your
headspace to make that call?

Speaker 1 (40:26):
It wasn't horrendous, so it wasn't as bad as it
had been in the past, so things were it felt
like things were getting a little bit better, but it
was definitely there. It took that week away, which was
the best thing I did, and I had the full
support of Adam Vogis, which is really important. But it was,
like I said, it was another reminder that I had

(40:49):
to do something about it. Maybe it's time to actually
talk to someone about it. Maybe it's time to learn
a bit more about what was actually happening. And I
think probably from that point on I did.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
How does that conversation go down when you walk into
a coach's office and say I need You're always smiling
when I'm asking the question. Yeah, because it's still We're
getting better at it, but it still is a little
taboo when an elite athlete says I need some time away.
How does that conversation go down for us me immortals
that will never understand.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
I've been lucky. I've had always had good coaches, amazing
support staff, great family. The conversation was after the game.
Fogsie came out and knew it was going to happen.
I was just kind of waiting for it to happen,
and he goes, Ash, let's go for a lap, and
we went for a few laps around Optus and it

(41:46):
basically is the same thing, mate, what's going on? I
think it was quite frustrated at my performance and at
what had happened, because from the outside it looked like
I just didn't care, when that wasn't the case. You know,
I just couldn't do what I wanted to do. I
was honest, and I just said, man, I just could
not I couldn't be there, I couldn't do it, and
I can't do it at the moment. And he said, look,

(42:07):
I think you need to take some time off, mate,
And that's really lucky. That was his suggestion. And the
next game was in Melbourne. He said, come to Melbourne,
you go see how you feel, train, see how that feels.
But there was no pressure on you to play. You
have a full support and just stay with your family
for the week while we play. And I remember I

(42:28):
went to training and I was like trying to buy.
I was like forcing it. But again there's like I
had no control over like how I was sort of
really feeling. He says. He was just really obvious. He's like, nah, mate,
and he just said go and yeah, I spent that
week with my family, which is really refreshing. It's funny
what you do and you've got great people around you.

(42:49):
And I think they realized as well that I probably
wasn't feeling so great at the time.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
There was a moment earlier this year where you earlier
last year, sorry, twenty twenty, where you actually made a call.
I believe you're sitting on a plane and you just, yeah,
decided that things needed to change.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, a couple of really important moments last year. I
think this is probably the first of them. So, yeah,
I wrote some things down and I'll tell you a
few of them, if that's all right.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
I got your journal in front of you.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, I I asked myself a couple of credit, got
my little journal.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Are you do you write a lot normally?

Speaker 1 (43:29):
No, not a big not a big journal person or
but this is like really natural. It just just happened.
So it was on the eighth of the second twenty twenty,
and I wrote to myself, I said, what do I
want out of life? Or like, you know, what do
I really want? I said, I want a good life.
What does that mean? What does that look like? A
happy and loving relationship with mads a family? Said I

(43:51):
want a beautiful house. I think that's something I've always
wanted since I was a kid.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
We're sitting in it, so tick.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, this is nice. I'm very lucky. I want to
look after Mum and dad, and I always want to
be close at will and wears. So those two ones
are very important to me because you know, Mum and
Dad always did everything that they could for always and eye,
you know, growing up, and try to give us the
best life that they possibly could in whatever way they
could at the time.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
And you have a bit of guilt about that, don't
you with your dad?

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yeah, yeah, I do. And it's a strange, strange feeling.
I don't know. I've just seen him work so hard
for such a long time. He does heating and cooling,
and he's got his own business and that's wonderful and
he's very proud of that, and he's worked bloody hard
for that. But you know, he'd come home from work

(44:41):
and he'd say, g h. He goes, you don't want
to do this, mate, so keep working, keep working hard,
he goes, keep doing well, you keep startying hard whatever
it was he because he'd say this all the time,
because you don't want to do this, mate, Because he'd
be covered in dirt, tired, sore. And the first time
I ever felt really guilty about that was back in

(45:02):
that twenty thirteen fourteen. Murky period was where it was
a time where he didn't have like a lot of
work on at the time, and I felt terrible for
that because he was trying so hard and working so hard.
Yet I had started to see good money, was living
a life that anyone would want to live, and I

(45:26):
wanted to throw it all away just to feel normal again.
And I found that very difficult because you see him
going on like that, and that's hard, that's hard to
deal with, and that was very confusing, yeah, for me,
because I was like, how dare I feel this way

(45:50):
when he's doing that. Yeah?

Speaker 3 (45:53):
You must know now, though, that you are a product
of his hard work, do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Absolutely? I've definitely got their balance of both of my
parents in me, Will was and I everything for them.
You know, they're protective of us. They just want us
to do well. So I think that's in turn, how
I want to be. And it's nice, you know. I
like that. I look up to my parents. I love that,

(46:20):
and I find it, as you can hear, pretty pretty
difficult to talk about. See. Like I said, I want
to look after them because I'm in a position to
do that. And then I want to be a good son,

(46:45):
you know, fiance at the moment, husband soon, brother, friend, leader,
cricketer and the one day father And at the bottom
of that page, I just want to be a good
per Obviously that's bloody important to me, as you can hear.
But I then wrote, how do I get there? And

(47:08):
that's when you have to be like really honest with yourself.
I think and sort of analyze or what are the
values that I want to live by and what are
the things that I can improve? Where do I maybe
let myself down? Sometimes? I said, I need to be
more open and honest, you know, with everyone and in
particular mad And I think in doing that, they'll be

(47:29):
understand able to understand me, you know, a lot, a
lot better, and they won't have to worry as much
at all because there'll be this open line of communication where.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Because you wish you lent on them more over these.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Years, Yeah, definitely, and I probably saved them a lot
of maybe not heartache, but just a bit of like
them being worried about me and my well being.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Is that the irony that when somebody is suffering from
mental health issues that you don't talk to me people
because you don't want to be the burden. But actually
I'm not talking to them. You become more of a
burden because they worry and they don't understand.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah, and it's all because they love you. Yeah, they
just love you and they don't want to see anyone
that they love going through something that they would never
want to go through.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Have you ever had a conversation with your family about
how the depths of how things got?

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Never? Never have never wanted them to. I never wanted
anyone to know anyone. I think this is the most
open I've ever been about it. So it's about time
I grew up and did something about it. In that sense,
maybe I tried to grow up a bit too fast.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
I thought you could do it all on your own,
I think so.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
I think.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
So what do you think they're going to think when
they hear this?

Speaker 1 (48:47):
I don't know about that. Later, I think they I
think they know a fair beard. Yeah, I'm a bit
nervous about it, but I know that in the most
beautiful way, they don't care. They love me no matter what,
and they won't be frustrated, they won't be angry, They'll
just be supportive. And I think they know I've come

(49:08):
a really long way, and that my last couple of
years or have been wonderful and I've actually done something
about it, and I think they know that.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
Keep reading.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Well, yeah, we need to be more open and honest.
So that was a big gay way to that little conversation.
Then I need to work on my patients so I
don't lose my call or say things that I end
up regretting. I need to be more accepting of others
and the differences and allow them to be their true
selves around me. So you know, I'm only doing this
now because you're being so accepting of me, you know,

(49:46):
and my differences or my mistakes or the good parts
of me. You're accepting all of it now, and I
can open up and talk to you about it because
I know. I just know that you're not judging me.
And if everyone was like that to everyone else, well
you probably help a lot of people. A lot of
people wouldn't be struggling. The best one, my favorite one,

(50:09):
I don't know we spoke about it before. I think
your favorite one as well. Seek first to understand. We're
very fast to jump to conclusions without knowing anything about
someone else or what they're dealing with or what they've
been through. You know, everyone has their own fight or struggle.
Everyone has something going on at their life at some stage.

(50:30):
So try and understand what someone is saying. Try and
understand where they're coming from. Even though you may not
agree with it, Just try and understand and then you
might reach some common ground. A few little words I
wrote down with reflection optimism. I think optimism is a
choice and reflection is something you can do as a
bit of a measure, something that can help you continually improve.

(50:52):
You can always reflect, and then you can always choose optimism,
and then your outlook is way more positive straight away
because you have that conscious choice. Take my own advice.
That was a really honest one. Be about it, you know,
take my own advice. Be about it. I've had some
amazing experiences and I've been able to help people through

(51:13):
chatting a bit about my experiences, my life experiences and whatever.
But probably time I help myself with some of that
and learn and listen to what I'm saying to other
people and use it for myself sometimes. So that was
a big one. Be a better listener. I just put
a star next to that and underlined it because I
think we all have plenty of conversations day to day
where you're hearing the other person but you're not really listening.

(51:36):
And coming from our perspective from a mental health standpoint,
someone may be talking to you and if you're really listening,
you can you might be able to work out to
this something's not right, something's wrong, and sometimes these people
just want to be listened to and heard. It was
a really nice reflection piece, and then that probably led

(51:56):
into me reaching out a bit more and seeking a
little bit more help.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
What help did you get? There's another book here.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
I've got another book. It's just my journal of little
notes that I wrote down through my chats with Michael Lloyd.
So the Cricket Australia psychologists amazing human and I don't
think I ever realized how good he was until I
had something that I really had to sort out. Six
months ago. I was waking up in the mornings. Everything

(52:25):
had been quite good for a couple of years. I
reckon and I was waking up in the mornings and
my heart was thumping. I was anxious. As soon as
I woke up. My breathing was faster and it was
like I was panicking. Every single time I woke up.
This is probably one of the first times I felt
this horrible, crippling sort of anxiety where I didn't want
to do anything. I didn't want to move. I did

(52:47):
the same thing where you don't want to actually want
to get out of bed, and that was very, very scary.
Similar pattern, but rather than being on more of the
depressive like numb sad scale, this is like panic stress,
really worrying about something that might happen, something that hasn't
even happened yet, and you can physically feel it, like

(53:07):
I could feel my heart racing. I knew I was
breathing faster. I remember one morning it felt like I
was literally going to pass out, and I never felt
that before.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Do you know what trick it at?

Speaker 1 (53:18):
I do? I do? And it's a on reflection. It's
something that has played a massive role in what I'd
been feeling this whole time. I think. I think there's
like an inextricable link between these two things, and it's
got to do with chronic pain. When I was younger,
in year twelve, stood up one day from my desk

(53:40):
where I was studying, and my arm, shoulder, whole area
felt lower. I didn't know what was going on. I
was like, I remember, took my top off. I was like, Mum, Dad, like,
my shoulder look lower to you, is something wrong? And
They're like no, no, And it felt like I couldn't
hold my shoulder up. So from that day in twenty eleven,
every day I'd been sort of like trying to hold

(54:00):
my own my own shoulder up, and my outlook on
things like my future life from a physical point had
been that really bleak. I thought I was the catastrophic
thought you have in your Head's like, oh my god,
I'm going to have to consciously hold my shoulder up
for the rest of my life.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
What triggered it was?

Speaker 1 (54:17):
It?

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Was there an injury? Was it no being stressed with
exams at the time, what was it that?

Speaker 1 (54:23):
No trigger, No, nothing at all. So if you could imagine,
it's actually so hard to describe because there was no trigger,
no reason for it to happen.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
But just one morning, you just yeah, you felt this
undeniable physical thing.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
Yeah, And from that point on a pattern had developed.
I was getting really tight, you know, for probably from
my right eye down my face, down my neck, down
my shoulder, down the back of my shoulder blade. My
arm was feeling weak, and this went on and on
and on. It was years and years up until now,

(54:58):
and I was in a lot of for a long time,
but I sort of knew that it was a bit
different from when you get an injury, in the pain
you get from an injury, this would happen in certain
social situations. So I was really scared of standing up.
Hated standing up. I hated sitting down without having my
right arm supported because then you know, if my arm
wasn't supported, I would have to support it and I'd

(55:20):
get really sore. So this is way more of like
a central pattern. And did it impact your cricket amazingly?
Not really incredibly, And I think why it didn't is
because I was distracted. So I knew that there were
times where it was there, and it's when I was
just doing everyday normal stuff where this thing was taking
control of me. So it was pretty much every thought,

(55:42):
every second of the day. It felt like I was
thinking about this right side, like my shoulder, my body,
and I was worried about like, Okay, what position can
I put it in when'sick? And I get saw why,
always trying to work out why is it happening, How
is it happening? Trying to figure out these patterns. All
the time I'm doing that, I'm kind of reinforcing it

(56:02):
as I've learned now. And it just felt like it
had total control over me and was dictating everything that
I did, and that through over nine years, got to
the point where it was totally unbearable up until about
six months ago where I had to do something about
it because I couldn't do anything. I had no brain

(56:22):
capacity left to do anything that I wanted to do.
Felt like my brain had just total control over me,
like I was being dictated to by something else. I
started speaking to an amazing man. His name's Laurama Mosley
and he's the leading pain scientist. I haven't done him
justice there.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
But he's I think fancy letters after.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
His name, oh the alphabet. He's the king in my eyes.
He's the smartest person I've ever spoken to. And we
are starting to work through and learn about what has
been happening and trying to undo that. So I've got
a far better understand of what happened, what has been happening,
and my way forward from that. It's really hard, probably

(57:06):
for anyone to understand unless people have gone through chronic
pain themselves and.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
The relationship between physical and psychological pain.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
I guess absolutely. It's so confusing.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
How big was it for somebody to reassure you that
it's a real thing.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
It was huge because I thought I was when Bananas,
I had a million theories in my head for what
was going on.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Do you think the validation is almost what has made
you feel a lot better in the last six to
nine months.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely, learning that there is actually a
way forward. Chronic pain kills people, so people commit suicide
a lot because people see no way out from it.
It controls them and they live a life that is uncomfortable,
and they see their future as being way more uncomfortable.
And that's how I've felt. But now I know that

(58:00):
there's actually things you can do to reverse those effects
a lot, and the first step comes with education. That
is the most important tool, learning about something, learning about
what it really is you're feeling, getting an understanding for it.
And then also in conjunction with Lorima, I was speaking
to Loydi and learning how to be present again and

(58:21):
also to combat the anxiety that I was feeling that
was crippling try not to avoid it, respect it, sit
with it, understand it, and let it pass naturally. And
I think kind of the essence of being present trying
to have thoughts, not force them away, but just letting
them come and go as.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
They are, Acknowledge them, but don't dwell on it.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Absolutely yeah, And I think it comes back to the
point of have thoughts, but don't be had by your thoughts,
where I was very much the other way around, and
that was where we came to the concept of management
and not control.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Living with something yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Yeah, And we would have a catch up each Thursday
pretty much through COVID. It helped me a hell of
a lot. Like I've written down a lot of stuff here.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
So how are you feeling now?

Speaker 1 (59:09):
I feel like I have a path forward every moment.
Happiness is absolutely not my end goal, because I don't
think that exists. But to enjoy being here, enjoy present moment,
being able to give more of myself, That's what I'm after.
Being able to give my best self as much as
I can. I think that's what I'm after, and that's
what I've been able to do recently, really really well.

(59:32):
And I think it's reflected quite a lot in my
cricket because I'm out there and I'm having fun and
I'm feeling like a kid again with this new sort
of energy. Because I've got energy to give. I have
a lot of optimism and I'm very lucky because I've
got a lot of people who want to help and
have helped me. People I have to mention Nick Jones,

(59:52):
the physio at the Whacker, Angie Bain, doctor Tom Hill
from the Whacker, Lauren and Moseley, Michael Lloyd. Those people
are you know, without them, this would probably look very
very different. And my family and my fiance Maddie. The
great lesson is that they've always been there. You just
have to be willing to ask for help. You have
to be willing to let yourself be vulnerable. You have

(01:00:15):
to be honest tell people that there is something wrong
and you will be so surprised at the overwhelmingly positive
and caring and loving response you're going to get from them.
And you never know who they're going to get you
to speak to, but they might change your life, and
that certainly happened for me.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Is talking about it now part of that process for.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
You definitely, Like I'm really scared of what people are
going to think of this, to be honest, and that's okay. Ah,
it's a bit scary. It makes me a bit anxious.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
What scares you the most?

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
I don't know that. I don't know. Judgment, probably people
probably just not understanding where I'm coming from, people being
maybe a bit confused, and then people worrying ultimiliar about me.
And that's I've said many times that I never wanted that,
But I think I'm really comfortable with who I am,
the support I've got around me, so I know I'm
going to be fine.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
And when you've heard cricketers like Glenn Max Sol, Moses Henriquez, yeah,
they's got to speak publicly. Has it empowered you?

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Absolutely? I'd spoken a little bit about it, but I've
never been really honest because I really just wanted to
avoid it. So to talk like this is scary, a
bit liberating, and I hope that it empowers people the
same way that other people's stories have empowered me, Because
there could be someone out there who feels really crap,

(01:01:39):
who feels really sad, who feels very anxious, who feels
very lost, who doesn't see a way out, who doesn't
know that there are people who want to help. If
this could help anyone, that's a huge win.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
Finally, how do you feel about cricket? In amongst all
of this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Cricket has been the one thing that's always been there.
There's a photo of me when I was two and
my grandma throwing me balls at my mum's hockey shin
pads on and with this little yellow cricket bat. So
it's something that's been in my life for as long
as I can remember. It has taught me so many lessons,
given me so many friends, allowed me to travel the world,
see things that I never thought i'd see, meet people

(01:02:20):
I never thought i'd meet. It's changed my life and
it's brought me to you on this podcast as well.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
So I wanted to make the list.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
And how I'm feeling about actually playing right now is
so good. I'm loving playing for Australia. I think I've
got to that point where I have the self belief
now that I belong at that level where it feels
like I'm going out there and I'm playing. You know,
I'm just playing like I was when I played with

(01:02:50):
Will and War's growing up in the backyard. I'm not
getting overawed by the occasion. I'm just going out and
competing and I'm doing my absolute best, and I'm just enjoying,
entertaining and hopefully bring in some joy to some people
in doing that. And I want to make the most
of it because it's not going to I'm not going
to be able to play forever.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Thank you, smiling that it's over.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
I'm really happiness. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
I appreciate it. I've no doubt it's going to help people.
I appreciate you being so honest, and I look forward
to watching that smile on many a cricket field for
many years to come, at many different levels. So whatever
that is, whether it's limited overs or Test cricket or
first class, it's been a joy watching you and hopefully
there's plenty more to come.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Thanks so much, theirs. I think what you're doing is
so important, giving people a platform to speak openly, to
be heard, but then also allowing other people to hear
that there's someone out there that's going to listen to
some of the stories on your podcast, be it this
one or the ones that have already happened, or the
ones that will happen in the future, and you could
change their life. So you're doing wonderful things.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
Thank you, thanks, it's good time, Thanks for listening to
this episode of Ordinarily Speaking, and thanks again to ashton
Agar for his candor as well as his kind words.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Please remember if this episode was triggering for you, Lifeline
and Beyond Blue are just a couple of places you
can go if you want to get in touch at
Ordinarily Underscore Speaking, on Instagram or on Twitter at Narrowly
Underscore Meadows. A new episode will drop on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Es Police

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
PLA