After five-year-old Ollie Peake had gone to bed in his family home in Geelong, his mother, Sarah, entered his bedroom to check on him. He was fast asleep in his cricket gear. She removed his helmet and gloves before tucking him in for the night.
The next morning she asked her son why he was sleeping in his kit.
“He looked at me with his beautiful, cheeky grin, and goes, ‘you didn’t know Mum, but under the covers, I had my pads on too!’ He slept in his pads,” Sarah Peake laughs at the memory.
Now 19 and captain of Australia at his second ICC Under-19 Men’s Cricket World Cup, Ollie offers a bashful grin in response to his mother’s tale while his father, Clinton looks on. The family are sitting in the team hotel in Windhoek, Namibia, where Australia have marched through the group stage undefeated; the two Super Six victories that followed in Zimbabwe – one of which came off the back of a crucial Peake century – means they will face England in the semi-final on 3 February.
The classy left-handed batter may have been destined to play cricket from a young age, but his rise has been both rapid and remarkable. While many cricket fans discovered him recently, thanks to his outrageous last-ball six to win a BBL match for the Melbourne Renegades against the Perth Scorchers, others have been tracking his progress through youth pathways and into the senior Victorian side.
With 10 Sheffield Shield appearances under his belt, influential voices – including former Australia captain Ricky Ponting – are already pencilling Peake in as a starter for the 2027 Ashes in England.
“That still feels a fair way away for me,” says Peake. “I’m purely trying to focus on keeping my spot in the Victorian team and winning games there, because, already in a year, I feel like that team are already my best mates, which is a pretty special thing.
“We’ve got a great culture there, and we’re building towards something special. In Australia there’s only six teams, and every team is incredible and has Test stars who have either played for Australia, in the mix, or up and coming. It feels like anyone who’s playing on their given day is good enough to make it to the next level.”
If Peake speaks about his career with a maturity beyond his years, it’s at least partly due to the influence of his father. Clinton also captained Australia’s Under-19s side and still holds the record for the highest individual innings in a youth international, set in 1995 when he scored an unbeaten 304 in a Youth Test against India at the MCG.
Clinton played a handful of matches for Victoria during a golden era for Australian batting in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and his own experiences have made Ollie aware that the road to international cricket is littered with talented youngsters who fade away after being dubbed the next big thing.
“When you’re young and naive, you don’t realise just how good each next level is,” says Clinton. “So hopefully Ollie, as a second generation cricketer, has got eyes wide open that nothing is a given, and the present is a gift, and you want to be grounded in what you’re doing right now, because you never know how long it’s going to last.”
“I’m just trying to make sure that I ask heaps of questions and keep myself grounded,” Ollie adds. “I’m not trying to ride each performance too much, either way. On the scale, I know it’s probably been a bit of a dry season for me compared to what I’m probably used to in juniors or even premier cricket. But I’m trying to look at things in the long term and enjoy each day as it comes.”
As an ageing Australian Test side slides towards transition, attention is quickly turning to the next generation and Peake’s standing as a serious contender was confirmed when he was invited to join the Test squad in a developmental capacity during Australia’s tour of Sri Lanka last summer.
“It was really exciting,” he says. “I remember being really nervous. I felt like I had impostor syndrome, like, why are they taking me? It definitely took me a few days to warm into it and start talking to people before they spoke to me.
“I think that’s all a part of it, observing and watching all the masters at work. It’s a golden generation of Australian cricket and, over the past 10 years, there haven’t been too many losses. Watching the way they go about it and how confident they are in their games was awesome.”
Peake has aspirations to play international cricket in all formats but he is unequivocal in citing Test cricket as his ultimate goal.
“I think the Ashes would be the coolest series to be a part of, but something else that really appeals is playing in the subcontinent. Australian sides struggle traditionally over there and to get in the heat in India or Sri Lanka or whatever, and just face heaps of spin bowling when it’s ragging and bouncing and rolling along the ground would be pretty cool as well. Foreign experiences are really appealing and, yeah, that’s the dream.”
For now, his sights are set on Australian success in Zimbabwe. Peake won his first Under-19s World Cup medal as a 17-year-old injury replacement, and now he is the senior pro, leading his country.
“The feeling is starting to become more and more familiar with each win,” he says. “It feels like the belief’s growing. That belief has definitely grown in my mind, and it feels like in everyone’s mind that we do have what it takes.”
