A memorable return to Deaf World Cup

[Glasgow]

Andrew Park was experiencing sensory overload. He didn't know what had hit him. The captain of Australia's deaf cricket team had worn a few on the body throughout the World Cup, but nothing quite like this. There were bright-eyed Indian kids coming at him from every angle. Beaming smiles. Huge hugs. It felt like hundreds of them. He did the only thing he could think to do, and embraced it.

"Being deaf can be challenging in a way that all your other senses are heightened," Park says. "So when the whole school swarmed me, it was overwhelming, but in the best way."

He looked around and tried to really take in what he was seeing. Here he was, captain of the Australian cricket team at a World Cup, and here were all his teammates, going through the same experience, as hundreds of deaf and hard of hearing kids came from everywhere at the New Delhi school, their enthusiasm and sheer joy completely infectious.

"I lost time trying to give everyone my attention," he remembers. "I lost count how many photos they asked me to take with them, which I very happily obliged.

"It was incredible – I was trying to communicate with these kids in another language and using hand gestures, everyone fumbling through conversation, but we were connected over our love for cricket. It was a mind-blowing experience."

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Despite the best efforts and intentions of those involved, including many volunteers with Deaf Cricket Australia, the fortunes of the national men's deaf and hard of hearing team had been struggling since 2012. The sport has a rich history among the deaf in Australia; Melbourne Deaf Cricket Club is believed to be the oldest sporting club for deaf people in the world. But the Deaf Cricket Australia volunteers needed support in raising funds and sponsors to provide opportunities for their players. Cricket Australia (CA) had come on board in a limited fashion across the past 20 years or so, supplying limited support, but the sport was in poor health at the elite level.

That was until mid-2017, when a Memorandum of Understanding between CA and Deaf Cricket Australia proved the shot in the arm needed for deaf cricket at a national level. CA’s Commercial team worked alongside the Diversity and Inclusion team to gain the support of Commonwealth Bank, who committed to providing the largest investment in Women’s Sport and Diversity by announcing a $15m three-year deal. The upshot was two-fold – a huge investment in the women’s game, and cricket becoming the first non-Paralympic national sport to fully fund their national disability teams.

The financial boon came hot on the heels of the inaugural National Cricket Inclusion Championships (NCIC) earlier that same year, a CA initiative that invited states to enter teams in three categories: Blind and low Vision, Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and Cricketers with an Intellectual Disability. The tournament was a huge success, selected as a finalist for the 2017 Australian Disability Awards, and in 2018, it expanded to include 15 teams and more than 200 players.

In April this year, a deaf and hard of hearing squad was selected based largely on NCIC performances for a two-week camp at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane. There they were exposed to world-class coaching, visited by Test spinner Nathan Lyon, and began putting plans in place for Australia's return to the Deaf World Cup.

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When the call went out for a head coach, there could not have been a neater fit than Jason Mathers. An employee at Cricket Victoria and a mentor over the years of an array of teams, including the Japan national side, and Country Victoria, Mathers boasted a credential that must have sealed the deal; his mum, dad and only sibling – and older sister – were all deaf.

Mathers was duly appointed head coach in March and oversaw the training camp the following month in Brisbane. It is a role he feels is "in my DNA", and one that is extremely personal for him, given his lifelong association with the deaf community.

"When this role came up, it was too good to pass up," he says. "So I put in to try and get it, and I was lucky enough. It definitely has a high personal connection for me, especially with my mother recently passing, in July-August. She knew I was doing it, so it's really personal, that's for sure."

Mathers was aware that the challenge awaiting Australia in the recently-concluded World Cup was a daunting one. The national side had been off the international scene for six years, and there was a vacuum of experience at that level within the squad. So instead of placing pressure on the now, he and his support staff encouraged the players to look at the tournament as the beginning of a journey.

"We only had three guys who had played for Australia before – Adam Wood, Luke Trudgett and Andrew Park," Mathers explains. "So it was a real learning experience for most of them.

"But this is the start of a five-year plan.