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What happens to Mike Hussey’s nickname now? Can you call someone Mr Cricket if their job is to inspect construction projects to confirm they comply with building regulations? We’re assuming that’s the kind of thing Mike Hussey will do after retiring – something dull that will allow him to be irritatingly officious.
He’s been a surprisingly good international cricketer though – he’ll always have that. People don’t generally remark on Hussey’s record that much because there’s always been a feeling that he was going to have a brief, statistically freakish Test career after only being capped at the age of 30. However, he’s actually hung about to the point where he’s played 78 Tests (it’ll be 79 if he doesn’t contract pleurisy or something before the New Year Test).
To put his career in perspective, only eight Englishmen have ever scored more than his 19 Test hundreds and he’s managed to average over 50 in a side that has frequently been utterly toss. He should probably get extra points for that. Unlike some of his predecessors, he’s actually had to do some bloody work rather than just mincing his way towards declarations.
Hussey also carved himself a highly unlikely short format career as a ‘finisher’. It’s quite a CV. Hopefully that will count for something when he’s job hunting next month. Bet he’s picked out his interview tie already.
He used to be a Math teacher. Just like Lewis Carroll. Wonder what my own teacher does in her spare time.
S.
Maths.
He is that very rare breed – a likeable and quite decent Aussie cricketer. It’s a wonder he got chosen at all. If they had picked him in his early 20’s he would now be ahead of Ponting etc.Probably end up as Chairman of the OZ Cricket Board some day. Hope so.
I’m delighted he’s retiring. I guess that says how much I rate him.
Why is he retiring just before an ashes double header?
Pussy.
Surely “Pussey”. That is what I thought exactly when I heard the news, DD, but maybe it is a little unfair. It’s his life, if he doesn’t want to spend the whole of the Australian winter in England, I guess he doesn’t have to.
He’s definitely become a better player as the team around him has crumbled. Before the last Ashes he was out of form and in danger of losing his place, and yet he was the mainstay of the Aussie batting for the whole series. Australia 38 for 3 was the start of the batting contest. Would Hussey give Australia a chance? It was impossible not to have respect for him after that.
It’d’ve been more interesting if he were called Hike Mussey.
Admirable application of the apostrophe. You are an exemplar for us all.
I’m a big fan of his bird beak approach to sunblock application. Not quite as classy as Shiv’s produce-aisle stickers, though.
He’s probably going to need…
More ties!
He nearly always looked a league or two above when he played county cricket.
Hussey was the example I would use to describe the Aussies strength and depth back then, as in “and the bloody Aussie batting is so strong, a bloke like Mike Hussey can’t even get an occasional gig”
How things have changed since then – for him naturally and progressively, but especially for the Aussie team that seems to lack that sort of strength and depth, whereas England seems now to have the “cut above” batsmen who cannot get a gig.
I’ll miss him, in a masochistic way.
When he was struggling in the 2009 Ashes the England players started calling him ‘Mr State Cricket’.