On mental health, Ashes selection and learning to understand himself
“There’s a lot of failure in sports, a lot of opinions about what’s going on and a lot of things you can’t control,” he says. “It completely consumed me, and when you go through certain things, I have OCD and was obsessed with recovery.
“But I was obsessed with everyone else, too, just like everyone else was. And when you already have a negative attitude, that didn’t make for a great mix of trying to be a professional athlete and trying to have fun.”
Jake Weatherald has caught the big fish: a place in the Test squad.
By the back half of 2020, Weatherald’s now-wife Rachel had become concerned about his behavior. A loss of joy and enthusiasm in his cricket was evident, as was simple things like sharing a glass of wine or two at home. Weatherald took a break from playing, got help for his mental health, and gradually returned.
“I wasn’t the best person around, I wasn’t very happy with myself,” he says. “When I was able to explore this with the help of Saca, Jason Gillespie and Jamie Siddons were very supportive at the time and were able to give me time to leave and understand myself better.
“When I came back, I had a perspective on how I could compete and deal with the challenges of professional sport. Now I’ve found that and I feel like I can handle anything.”
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“I’m sure there will be things I will encounter if I play. [in the Ashes] These are really hard and I’m going to be super stressed and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, I still have my house, I still have my wife, my dogs, I still have my friends, and I can walk home at night knowing that I did the best I could. “I’m safe about it now, and it took me a while to figure it out.”
Lessons in batsmanship also came with time. Before moving from Adelaide to Hobart, Weatherald was mentored by the likes of Chris Rogers and Mike Hussey. This helped him add independence and stamina to his game; He was largely confined to the club in his first season, appearing in the second XI as Tasmania preferred others.
But when Weatherald was given the chance to start the 2024-25 season in the Tigers’ first XI, he had absolute clarity about how he would play and what was important: sporting the Australian wickets, using his arsenal of shots to put pressure on the bowlers and turning the odds in his favour.
“When the conditions are difficult and the bowlers are aggressive, although it is difficult and you can get good balls early, you also get great opportunities to score and that is how I see batting in difficult conditions,” he says. “I always try to put pressure on the bowler, that’s the important thing.”
“Bowler is always calling. They’re under pressure to get wickets and I’m trying to see it that way now. Five years ago I probably would have thought, ‘What a shit storm this is, I’ve got to go up against Australia’s best bowlers and try to survive’. Whereas now if I go out, I know my record shows I’ll find a way to score runs in the long run.”
Jake Weatherald with his dog Ivy.
On Wednesday morning, Weatherald’s phone rang after he had made 1391 runs at 53.5 in his last 15 first-class matches. The election chairman was George Bailey.
“I tried to play it as cool as possible, but I was definitely screaming in my head,” Weatherald says. “But he said, ‘we like the way you’re going about it, your record shows you’re doing really well, everything’s going well, we think you can put pressure on the bowlers and we like that, we don’t want you to do anything different, just be ready to go.'” It was clear they were confident I had a game on hand to hopefully perform.
“I’m not going to lie, you’re kicking yourself a bit. I’ve been wanting to get selected for Australia for so long it’s one of those things where you don’t think it’ll ever happen, it’s a pipe dream. “Then it’ll be announced that you’re part of the squad and you’ve got players like Steve Smith, Travis and ‘Kez’. [Carey]Joining them will be a great moment.
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Weatherald noted comments about the age of the Australian team and that he is getting an opportunity at 31 after a decade in the system. He sees the wealth of experience around him and in his own story as a source of strength.
“Look at Sammy [Konstas]He came in as a young man and had some opportunities and great moments, but at the same time everyone needs to go from here and learn how to be better and more mature as a player,” Weatherald says.
“People say age is a negative but I think it shows that you have to learn life lessons to get to where you need to be in Australian cricket. The only way to be consistent over a long period of time is to understand yourself well.”
