Dan Christian - The All-rounder: The inside story of big time cricket

For Jorgia and Harper

Most books by cricketers are the initiative of either a publisher, a player agent, or both. The All-Rounder is an exception. Dan Christian is too unassuming to crave much attention. I had to talk him into this journal of his year, which started as an account of his experiences in the Indian Premier League, but took on a life of its own as the early 2020s threw up challenge after challenge.

Having an interest in cricket as a life as well as a game, I have a bit of a weakness for cricket diaries. A bit over a decade ago, I helped my friend Ed Cowan put his thoughts in order for a diary of his season as a first-class cricketer with Tasmania in 201011. I had since been looking around for someone who might help update my understandings of the cricketers day-to-day world. Id interviewed Dan a couple of times, liked his take on things, and mentioned my idea to a mutual friend. A couple of days later, I started chatting to Dan in Chennai on Zoom, and off we went, yarning every few days, usually with the lovely Jorgia in the background. I subsequently came back with a publisher, and everything went from there.

I say everything went advisedly. Because one of the notable contrasts with Eds book, which captured the last Australian season before the Big Bash League and featured a regular succession of matches in the Sheffield Shield and Ryobi One-Day Cup, is how little the modern player can now be sure of.

At the outset of The All-Rounder, Dan was scheduled to play the Pakistan Super League for the Karachi Kings, the Indian Premier League for Royal Challengers Bangalore, the Vitality Blast for Notts Outlaws, The Hundred for the Manchester Originals and the Big Bash League for the Sydney Sixers, with the chance of a berth in Australias squad for the T20 World Cup.

Only the Sixers panned out as planned. The PSL and IPL were both wracked by COVID-19. Dan and Jorgia had to grope their way to England via the Maldives and Bahrain, only for Dan to be summoned back to Australia to undertake a white-ball tour of the West Indies and Bangladesh before completing the second half of his RCB commitments in the UAE. One bio-secure bubble succeeded another. One hotel room melted into the next. A running gag became the curtains by which Dan would usually be framed when he joined each Zoom meeting, a personal favourite being the set lying on the floor in Dhaka, having come away in Dans hand the night before. The imagined glamour of the freelance cricketers life is decidedly superficial.

Then there was the business of trying to lead something resembling a normal life. Dan and Jorgia learned at the commencement of the IPL that they would be becoming parents before the end of the year; he set about finding a new home in Sydney while in Chennai, bought it while in Bahrain, settled on it while in St Lucia, but did not sleep in it until after returning from Dhaka. He played for the Sixers the night before Jorgia gave birth to Harper, and took them on the road soon after.

A professional cricketer for almost two decades, Dan has become a veteran at contouring his personal life to cricket, but this experience was, of course, intensified by the pandemic. Most of us accepted in this time that international travel was too difficult. Dan had no choice but to keep it up, with all that this involved: constant tests, regular isolations, endless rigmarole and reorganising. About viruses and vaccines, he knows a great deal more than I do: he has had to.

Dan coped. Of course he did: he is personable and practical, even-tempered and good-humoured, never too high or too low but fundamentally optimistic. He puts games behind him quickly; he does not fuss about what he cannot control; but he also cares and empathises, takes counsel and thinks things through. Hes the kind of guy, in fact, youd like to share a dressing room with which, in addition to his talent and record, explains why he has played so long, so widely and so popularly. I like him. You would too. And we hope you enjoy The All-Rounder as much as we did putting it together.

Gideon Haigh

T20 is my life today, but it wasnt always. Im an old-fashioned country cricketer. Im also a Wiradjuri man. Now I get to play with Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers. Its as much fun as it sounds.

These days Im not much of a cricket watcher. Even of games Ive played in. Crickets developed a bit of an obsession with studying video, to analyse technique and correct faults. But Andrew McDonald, who was my coach at Victoria and at the Melbourne Renegades, used to say that we spent too much time watching the 5 per cent of cricket where we did things wrong, to the exclusion of the 95 per cent of the time we did things well. And I reckon hes right.

Theres one exception to that. I enjoy looking at images of the teams Ive played with celebrating victory those moments where everyones united, enjoying their own success and each others. No cricketer can win anything on their own. You cant bat without a partner or bowl without fielders. So I like looking round the faces, enjoying my memories of the hard work we did together and thinking about the bonds of friendship we established. By now, there are a lot of bonds.

In many ways, Im quite a conventional cricketer. I played 83 first-class and 119 List A matches, including 19 one-day internationals for Australia. For me, first-class cricket is still the benchmark. It wasnt my choice to stop playing it: Victoria simply didnt renew my contract. I could still play it now; actually, I think Id be at least as good as I was before, if not better.

Around the time I was taking my first steps in elite cricket, a new kind of game appeared. Twenty20 or T20 cricket was so novel that, in my second season for New South Wales, I played with Andrew Johns, probably historys greatest rugby league player. Which was great, because hed been a childhood hero of mine, but it showed what the attitude was to the new format it was treated as a novelty. Times have changed. Its on T20s growth that my career has been carried forward. I was recently asked if I could name all the T20 franchises I have played for, and while I did it successfully, some did come to mind more easily than others and on the various team songs I mostly drew a blank. Still, like I said, something that never loses its attraction for me is being part of a winning side.

Three years ago, I thought I was pretty much done. I was 34 and Victoria had let me go. I played a season at the Delhi Daredevils, where I only started four times and had little impact. Knowing I might not have much time left in top-level cricket, I set out simply to enjoy it. It turned out I was on the brink of the most successful phase of my career one that would take me to England, South Africa, the West Indies, the UAE and Pakistan.

I was part of a win in the Caribbean Premier League for the Trinbago Knight Riders, and in the Mzansi Super League with the Jozi Stars. The Notts Outlaws are my fourth county, following spells at Hampshire, Middlesex and Gloucestershire. Ive led them to two T20 Blast titles. The Sydney Sixers are my fourth Big Bash League franchise, after stints at the Brisbane Heat, the Hobart Hurricanes and the Melbourne Renegades. When we won the BBL 10 at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 6 February 2021, it was the ninth T20 competition Id been involved in winning in less than a decade, with six of these titles in the last four years.