So, back in late December Ellyse Perry was named the International Cricket Council's Female Cricketer of the Decade as well as sweeping up the T20 and ODI player awards. She is that rare cricketer who can change a game with either bat or ball, or both. Not only that but she is also an international soccer player, having debuted for Australia in both soccer and cricket in 2007 at the age of just 16. She continued to star in both sports until 2014, when the increasing professionalism of both meant she had to choose.
What is the secret to her phenomenal success? Perspective shows us a number of things. She started life with a lot of privileges - a comfortable home and family life on Sydney's northern beaches, supportive parents. She is clearly a daddy's girl and her dad spent hours with her after school and on weekends, throwing balls in the cricket nets or kicking soccer balls. To this day she still trains with him when she is home in Sydney and he sends her coaching tips from afar when she's playing. But the heart of her success, unsurprisingly, is her love of hard work. She tells us over and over how she enjoys training more than playing, the chance to practice a skill over and over until she has nailed it. We hear this about most sports superstars. Being an elite sportsperson is as much in the mind as in the body.
As it has been for the world in general, 2020 has been a testing year for Perry. As well as the public issues of bushfires and pandemic that have stressed us all, she started the year with a serious hamstring injury during the World Cup. Months of rehab only came to an end late in the year, just in time for the Women's Big Bash League in which her performances with both bat and ball were well below her normal standard. Not only that but mid-year she and her husband, rugby international Matt Tomua, ended their marriage, perhaps cruelled by years of incompatible playing schedules. You would be brave to bet against her rebounding in 2021, but I wonder if Perspective would have been such a sunny, simple book if it had been published a year later.
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Of course there is a bigger context here. Isn't there always? Between 2007 and 2014 Perry was an Australian representative in two popular sports but still needed to supplement her income to earn a living wage. The previous generation of women's cricketers paid their own way. In 2010, as she was establishing her cricketing reputation, there was no ICC Female Cricketer of the Decade. The Rachel Heyhoe Flint Award for women's player of the year was only instituted in 2017.
The choice that was forced on Perry in 2014, and her growing profile as a public sporting figure, is part of a growth spurt in women's elite sport here in Australia and elsewhere in the world. Prior to the past decade, tennis was the only professional sport which gave its women players anything like the same status as the men. For the rest, the men hogged the limelight (and the money) while if women played at all it was on crappy suburban grounds, at their own expense, in front of an audience of family and friends. If Perry was ten years older she would not have made a choice between sports in her mid 20s, she would have made a choice between sport and earning a living. Rachel Heyhoe Flint herself, who played cricket for England between 1960 and 1979, worked as a school teacher and later as a journalist.
The road for women's sports is still hard. Male cricketers at State level are guaranteed a decent living wage. At least the women are paid now, but only the internationals are fully professional. I'm not sure what Ellyse Perry is paid but I can guarantee you it is a lot less than Steve Smith, the men's Test player of the decade, not to mention her male counterpart as cricketer of the decade, Indian superstar Virat Kohli.
They certainly need it. The Women's AFL pays its players a retainer of $10,000 per season, with their competition squeezed into a tight window in February and March before the men get under way. The Women's NRL is even more token, with four teams playing a four week season in August each year. At least soccer and cricket are serious about their women's programs, even though players are still far more poorly paid than their male counterparts. But when push comes to shove, it's the women who miss out. The AFL cancelled its womens competition without hesitation when COVID hit, and its subsequent machinations to get the men on the field were not matched by anything for the women. While the men's cricketers are travelling the country playing internationals against India and BBL games in all the major cities, the women carried out the whole WBBL in Sydney, living together in a single hotel and travelling over a period of a few weeks to various suburban grounds. At least they had their own rooms, but this week we heard that the visit from the Indian women's team has simply been cancelled. It looks like Perry will have plenty more time to hit balls with her dad in the next few months. We have a long way to go.
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One of the big differences between women's and men's elite sportspeople is that the women come across as much better people. Of course the women are not saints, but while they certainly enjoy a good time and no doubt have their rivalries and interpersonal conflicts you never hear about drunken violence, sexual assault or even drink driving. The women's cricket team has managed to beat all comers and win world cups without once applying sandpaper to a cricket ball.
Why is it that women athletes in Australia can achieve as much as, or more than, their male counterparts without being a***holes? Is it that women are just trained to be nice and compliant? Is it that their low rates of pay and limited adulation prevents them from developing the same sense of entitlement? Is it all about testosterone?
Perhaps all of these play a part but here's another explanation. Women in our society are taught to have more emotional intelligence than men, and are far more likely to seek help when they need it. It has been obvious for many years that Bernard Tomic and Nick Kyrios both have untreated or poorly treated mental health issues. Like good Aussie men they just try to soldier on, failing dismally and making the same mistakes over and over. So many of our top male sportspeople have done the same, self-medicating with alcohol and other drugs so that by the time poor behaviour leads their clubs to say 'get help or get out' they have added addiction to their mental health problems and sometimes criminal charges to their life histories.
By contrast Barty, after a stellar junior career, found herself struggling emotionally and physically in the senior tour, so she took some time off. She played a season of cricket for the Brisbane Heat. She got counselling, thought about what she wanted from life. She stayed home, spending time with family and friends. Then eventually she went back to tennis and now she is successful on the court and happy off it. She enjoys her wins but when she loses it's not the end of the world for her. She knows it's just a tennis game, and there'll be another one soon. Unlike her male counterparts she is mentally healthy and has a good sense of perspective. It's almost as if she and Ellyse Perry go to the same sports psychologist.
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If sport is a microcosm of society (which admittedly is a dubious claim) then perhaps it shows us clearly where we are at in terms of women's equality. We talk about it, we view it as a noble aspiration, but somehow the rewards and adulation still go to the men. There is no bar to women rising to the top in the corporate world, but somehow only ten of Australia's largest 200 companies had women CEOs in 2020. Women have had the vote for over a century but only six of the 22 Commonwealth Cabinet Ministries are currently held by women. Women's average weekly earnings are 14% less than men's. Women make up over 60% of all homeless people.
I could go on but you get the picture. Women could be - should be - equal in our society, but somehow they are not. Us men still have the power, and the money. We pretend this is just normal and natural, but actually we are holding it with an iron grip. As in sport, so in life, there is still a long way to go.
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