Darwin-born cricketer Jake Weatherald talks challenges of living away from the action

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Cricket is the world's second most popular sport after soccer. But for young Territorians seeking to enter the professional game, living remotely can be challenging, but not for Darwin born Jake Weatherald who recently scored 183 runs against Sri Lanka on his hometown turf.

Transcript

00:00When I got told I was coming up here to play for Australia Rae, to be here and play in

00:08front of some locals and obviously my fan members and people I've grown up with, it's

00:12a pretty cool experience for me.

00:15My name's Jake Wetherald, I'm a professional cricketer.

00:17I was born in Darwin.

00:18It was awesome growing up here, I loved being a Territorian, obviously being a kid, you

00:22get into your fishing.

00:23I wasn't as good as all the boys playing footy, I wasn't tall enough to play tennis

00:26so I sort of went to cricket.

00:28My dad would always go outside and throw balls to me and stuff like that, but I was

00:32sort of ten when I took up cricket for the first time, one of my best mates took me under

00:36his wing and his dad was the coach at the time and said come out and try out.

00:39So I went to Darwin Cricket Club, I was super supportive, built a really good culture there,

00:43junior cricket in the morning, senior cricket in the afternoon, sort of fast-tracked me from

00:46a learning point of view.

00:47So coming back to my local home club at Darwin was pretty cool, not just to play cricket

00:52but also just to see everyone that I haven't seen in a long time.

00:56When I was probably 13, 14 I had a dream of playing cricket as high as I could.

00:59Obviously the unfortunate truth of being in the Territory is you don't get the opportunity

01:02to play for the Territory so I had to find a way of getting into a state system and figuring

01:06out a way of obviously playing for Australia and that's the best way to do that is to

01:09go down south.

01:10So my mum was big on providing that for me.

01:12It's been a lot of wobbles.

01:14I think the first one I had when I was younger, I'd sort of just finished school, I wasn't,

01:19I would say, not a very professional person.

01:22My mum sort of pulled me aside and said you sort of need to sort yourself out.

01:24If you want to become a professional cricket at times, sort of come into a bit of a crunch

01:27here.

01:28So I was lucky there was a guy called Tony Judd up here that sort of said if you want

01:31to come train full time with me, you can come play for Tracy Village.

01:35I work with you every day, I sort of came and made a commitment to come up here every day,

01:39train in these nets here.

01:40Spent every day here, training nonstop, worked on with Sykes, strength conditioning, did everything

01:45I possibly could and it sort of just moulded me into the cricket I became really from there.

01:50That opportunity for me was probably, that was a big defining moment in my life and so

01:53I owe a lot to Tony Judd and my mum at that time who was super supportive.

01:57And then I ended up playing first class cricket when I was 21 so I was very lucky that the Darwin

02:02provided me a good opportunity to train when I wasn't down south and I was able to come back

02:05up here, train and play when the other season was off.

02:08I've got so many great facilities up here and the coaches are amazing.

02:12So thankfully now that I'm 30 I feel like my game's in a point of, and my mindset's in

02:16a place where I feel as I can be the best version of myself and whether that takes me to the

02:20top of the test cricket or it means I've, you know, this is the highest I get to.

02:24You just got to aspire to be the best you can be and everything else sort of takes care of itself.

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