Cricket is life for 21-year-old identical twins Adam and Ben Pattison. If they’re not playing it the South Australian brothers are training and if they’re not training they’re talking about it.
Their father Neil likens them to another famous set of Australian cricket brothers, the Waughs. Which is which, though? Neil has occasionally heard the pair talking about the game in their sleep, so perhaps they’re both Steve.
At 49 Pattison Sr is a club cricketer himself, which he thinks is what provided the spark for his boys to embrace the game. By high school they were working their way up the ranks of various local indoor leagues (“they started getting too good for [one] comp,” says Neil) before last year making the grade for their state in the Lord’s Taverners Shield, the next instalment of which they’ll figure in by July. The Pattisons play outdoors too, alongside their old man at Western Youth CC in Adelaide’s suburban cricket ranks.
Both brothers are tall, agile and whippet-thin. Ben is a left-arm paceman (“he’s only just learning how to hold the ball properly and swing it,” says Neil) and Adam is a left-arm chinaman spinner in the mould of Michael Bevan. Both bat right-handed and field with a dedicated zeal, launching their wiry frames into every single pre-game training drill. On account of their backyard encounters at home, Neil says the lawn is looking a little threadbare these days.
This week the Pattison brothers are on national duty for the first time as part of Australia’s squad for the Inas International All Abilities Cricket Championships in Melbourne. Since 2005 the tournament has been played as a bi-annual tri-series between Australia, England and South Africa but the latter didn’t make the trip this time, turning it into a virtual Ashes encounter. Both sides comprise talented cricketers with intellectual disabilities.
Running alongside the Inas tournament this time is the Blind Cricket national championships and on Monday, a Deaf Cricket exhibition match too, making it the first time players from such diverse backgrounds have been brought together to compete simultaneously. Though Australia won three of the first four Inas championships, England are the current title holders after their 2011 win.
The England squad, decked out in their Waitrose-sponsored Adidas kits, benefit from a host of support staff; coaches, physios and when they’re back home, dieticians as well as a strength and conditioning coach. The man behind this slick, professional setup is Ian Martin, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s head of disability cricket.
The genesis of the inaugural Inas tournament was a 2004 conversation between Martin, a South African Winston Stubbs and Robyn Smith, the CEO of Ausrapid, an organisation set up 29 years ago to increase sporting and recreational opportunities for Australians with integration disabilities. Starting with nothing, this Anglo-Australian alliance has driven the project ever since. They hope that with time and funding, other countries will join in too.
“The ECB were behind it from the start,” says Martin. “We took a view that if we were going to have sides going out and representing England then it’s far better to have them under the ECB umbrella.” No detail is spared in identifying and preparing England players for international tours such as this one. The toughest part for Martin was telling players from the elite pool of 28 contenders that they hadn’t made the final squad.
With guidance from within the same system that supports the big-name professionals, Martin says it is rewarding to see the personal transformation in some players. “Typically with guys with intellectual impairment there’ll be low self-esteem, a lack of self-confidence,” he says, “and you can actually see these guys change over time through their involvement in the sport.
“Their success on the field breeds self-confidence and self-esteem, which they take into their life. It’s said a lot that sport changes lives and it’s never more apparent than with these guys.”
Though England has a County Championship for players with physical and learning disabilities, cricketers in this squad also feature in mainstream club competitions, much like their Australian counterparts. Robyn Smith wouldn’t have it any other way, pointing to the social capital many members of the Australian squad have gained from being involved in cricket clubs, not to mention the changes in attitudes their successes have brought about in those communities.
“Sport just creates that social inclusion that allows [players] to feel camaraderie and respect,” notes Smith. She bubbles with enthusiasm and passion not only for her job, but the players themselves. “It’s just sublime how far these fellas have come,” she says.
Smith speaks of the Australian all-rounder Brett Wilson like a proud parent, noting that he also captained the Boomerangs, Australia’s basketball team for people with an intellectual disability. Without her determination and drive, you find it hard to believe that either side would find themselves in Doncaster, on the outskirts of Melbourne, this Tuesday afternoon. “I can just see how far they’ve developed as men and the contribution they put back into the community.”
For the series-opening Twenty20 encounter, Adam and Ben Pattison both miss out on selection. No matter, they’re impossible to miss with bright yellow “hi-vis” vests strapped over their Australian kit. When they’re not hovering attentively by the playing race – nervously chewing their nails in solidarity with Australia’s bowlers – they’re sprinting on to the ground, ferrying bottles of Gatorade to team-mates as though they’re relay batons in an Olympic final.
When the Pattison brothers first got the news they’d been selected in the Australian squad, their dad Neil “didn’t hear the end of it, basically”. Under the guidance of Australia’s coach – the former Bermuda international David Kemp – they tuned up for their international debut during a four-day training camp at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane.
Out in the middle, England lose two early wickets to Boyd Duffield, a veteran of previous Australian triumphs. At the other end, the left-armed Victorian Lachlan MacRae bowls with brisk pace but not much luck. From there things get tougher for the home side.
Mistaken as Eoin Morgan by a passerby during England’s warm-up game at Benalla, Dan Bowser is in magnificent touch during his 52 for the tourists. In one over he helps himself to three boundaries, one a scything sweep that travels barely two metres to the left of the man on the deep square-leg boundary but still beats him to the fence. Bowser and his partner Chris Edwards (45 not out) take the game away from the Australian bowlers in the middle overs, helping England to 160 for four at the conclusion of their 20 overs.
When play resumes, the Australians are found wanting for batting firepower. The experienced opener David Baird, a survivor from Australia’s first campaign in 2005, has to retire hurt with a hamstring complaint. Then the England bowlers clamp down on Grant Cross (31) and Duffield (20) before the latter is run out in spectacular style from side-on by England’s Ronnie Jackson, who also adds a sharp catch to his own late-innings batting cameo. At 96 for four after their 20 overs, the Aussies fall well short of the target but leave the ground with their heads held high.
“They’re great role models for other people with disabilities,” says Smith. “We just need to get other countries to see it because they’ll look at it and go: ‘Look at this. We can do this.’”
