


Competition is skin deep

Alex Brown in St George's
June 28, 2008

The Husseys make no attempt to sugar-coat the situation. As children, adolescents and even young adults, the brothers didn't care much for each other. Ascerbity and antagonism marked their relationship. The Bradys, they weren't.

"I just felt as a kid everything was competitve - in the backyard, playing cards , playing dice, whatever," Michael said. "I'd generally lose my temper, because he'd try to bend the rules a bit, and I'd try to drive him into the dirt. We weren't friends, definitely not. I just saw him as the enemy and had to win. And he was much the same coming from the other way."

Michael does not use the term "enemy" flippantly. The older and more naturally gifted of the brothers, Michael viewed David not so much a brother, but an opportunity to flex his athletic superiority. And for David, Michael represented a figure to be defeated by any means necessary, underhanded or otherwise.

"I remember a couple of times on the squash court, where generally I was finishing second, for some unknown reason," David said. "I used to always aim for his back, the back of the legs so he would have to retire and I could win the match. I was a bit dodgey like that. Now I try to beat him fair and square on the cricket field."

So it went for the Hussey brothers for well over 20 years. Like the Waughs before them, the competitiveness that drove them as athletes divided them as siblings, and continued to do so until David moved to Melbourne to further his cricketing career.

Even then, the relationship was slow to thaw. But thaw it eventually did, to the point where civility was restored and, when selected together for Australia's one-day tour of the West Indies, the Husseys were genuinely pleased for each other's success.

"I think one thing he may have found tough was that everyone talked to him as ... Michael's little brother," Michael said. "I think that annoyed him fair a bit. So for him to move to Victoria, as much as I hate to say it, was probaly a good thing. He could go over there, get his own identity, carve his own name in his own sort of way. Probably just being apart and for him being able to develop his own sort of personality, his own style, has probably heloped him and helped us too as a relationship, because there hasn't been that sort of competitive nature together."

To this day, the differences between the brothers extends far beyond the hands with which they grip the bat. Whereas Michael's fanatasism for cricket is known globally, David prefers to detatch from the game when not playing or training.

David has spent much of his downtime in the Caribbean reading: Marching Powder, the story of the South American cocaine trade, Catcher In the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird, among others. And when not buried in a book, the younger Hussey - nicknamed BOM-er by his Victorian teammates, as in Brother of Michael - has been dreaming of a maiden call-up to the Australian one-day side, following on from his two Twenty20 international appearances.

"I would like to have my own identity, to be honest," he said. "My ultimate goal is to play Test cricket. One game, one one-day international and a few Twenty20s."

Should David prove successful in his quest for a baggy green, Michael believes the achievement will be held in a higher regard by the family than his own record-breaking feats with the bat.

"I think they'd actrually be more happy for Dave, I get the feeling, just becasue he's probably had a harder road than I have had," Michael said. "Dave has probably had a lot more ups and downs than I've had. He had a lot of problemns in WA which caused him to leave and play Victoria, which meant he had to try and start again and gain the respect of the Victorian team and work his way in there. Now he's worked his way up to a level where he can definitely be succesful for Australia, so I think his is a great journey and a great story, and I think they would be really proud."

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