Why Melbourne’s pitch perfect for Ellyse Perry
She’s one of the country’s best sportspeople and, as she prepares to move to Melbourne and take on the Kiwis, Ellyse Perry is keeping her feet firmly on the ground.
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ELLYSE Perry doesn’t care what you think. Please don’t take offence — this is not another case of a cosseted superstar rounding on the people who have placed her on a pedestal.
No, it’s an insight into perhaps our most aware sporting icon, a young woman who refuses to lose herself in the adulation that comes with being the best all-round cricketer on the planet.
“Pez” has been known to the nation since she was 16, when she debuted for both the Australian soccer and cricket teams in an unprecedentedly precocious fortnight.
Blessed with talent and natural good looks, she was the marketers’ dream girl.
The thing is, the glitz and glamour has little appeal for Perry and over 12 years in the limelight, she has refused to let it seduce her. She’s been too busy making runs and taking wickets and working like hell to reach the top.
“I’ve never been interested in (the attention), so I’ve never felt like I’ve had to deal with it,” Perry says. “What other people say about me, especially people I don’t know, has never really had an impact on me. It’s never been something to define me.
“I’ve been incredibly lucky to have the people in my life that mean a lot to me. I think a lot of them are very good at keeping me level-headed.”
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Key among this group are her GP mum Kathy, semi-retired dad Mark and older brother Damien. Mark was her first coach and he will be her last. The pair still spends countless hours in the nets at St Ives, on Sydney’s North Shore, the SCG or Blacktown.
“It’s a privilege, from my point of view,” Mark says. “We’ve always got along very well, both Damien and Ellyse. I just make myself available when she wants to have a hit.”
Then there’s Perry’s husband, Wallaby fly-half Matt Toomua, who she met when he plucked up the courage to approach her in a Qantas Club lounge in Sydney in 2012. They married in 2015.
The ceremony was a surprise to friends and family, who thought they were attending a Christmas lunch celebration — another sign of Perry’s “it’s not about me” approach.
This year Perry and Toomua, who is playing for Leicester Tigers in England’s Premiership Rugby competition, will make a home together in Melbourne after living out of suitcases on opposite sides of the globe for too long.
“It’s something we’re both really looking forward to,” Perry says. “It’s the first opportunity to live with each other full-time and have just the one base. It’s really exciting.
“He came along at a really important time in my life — changed a lot of things for the better. It’s been really nice to share everything we have since. He’s had a huge impact on me as a person and I feel really grateful for that.”
In Melbourne, Toomua is joining the Rebels Super Rugby side and Perry will play for Victoria in the Women’s National Cricket League, while continuing with the Sydney Sixers in the WBBL. Perry was farewelled on a winning note last Saturday, when New South Wales beat Queensland by 31 runs in the WNCL final.
Perry is Sydney-born and bred, but her personality seems more suited to the subtle south. And there’s her love for coffee (long black, thanks, sometimes on ice, and the odd piccolo).
“The girls hate it because whenever they go to get me a coffee, they actually don’t know what to get me half the time because I constantly change,” she laughs.
Perry and Toomua, who are part-owners in a couple of Canberra cafes, reckon you can get to know a place by joining the locals for a brew.
“It’s a big part of Matt and I, when we first met, it’s a common interest,” Perry says. “I remember going to Melbourne and we’d basically go to eight cafes in a day and drink way too much coffee and we’d be shaking by the end of it. That’s expanded for us because we travel so much.
“We try to find a cool cafe wherever we go. I just love to be able to sit there and get a feel for the place you’re in. You’re interacting with locals, you get an idea of what the vibe is like.”
Perry’s attitude towards social media has a distinctly cautious vibe. Her first post on Twitter came in December 2017, the day she was named ICC cricketer of the year.
“A lot of the time I’m not really fussed about it, but then sometimes there’s huge value in it,” she says. “Certainly, the private part of my life I’ve never wanted to share on social media.
“Very rarely is it a true reflection or depiction of someone’s true self. A lot of it is manicured and cultivated and there to present a certain image.
“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but for me that’s a huge waste of mental energy and time.
“Look at some of the statistics and the effects social media is having on our younger generation; I can absolutely see why that’s occurring because you only have to spend half an hour trawling through it to see all of these idealised, staged pictures of people’s supposed life. You kind of get really caught up in it.
“I’ve never wanted to have that impact on others, or for it to have that impact on me. I’d rather go out and do things genuinely. For me, that’s going out and playing a game of sport and playing it fairly and contested really hard and do everything I can to the best of my ability to play well for the team and for the sport.
“Hopefully people see that and that’s their idea of me, not some photo I put up with a filter and a smart caption.”
Perry’s on-field performances have created a bigger stir than any social post could.
Mark has seen the effect his daughter is having on the game.
“You’re at the ground, for example at Drummoyne (in Sydney’s west), kids are being interviewed, “Who’s your favourite player?”, Ellyse’s name often comes up … it’s just nice to hear that,” he says. “You realise she’s got a lot of influence, on not only young girls, but young boys as well.”
This just-completed WBBL season Perry has been a record breaker. The Sydney Sixers captain clocked up 777 runs — 217 more than have been scored before in a WBBL season (national captain Meg Lanning made 560 in WBBL01).
Perry did it with a simply stunning average of 86.33 with two centuries and six half-centuries. She also took 10 wickets.
Her hitting power was on show during a nailbiting WBBL semi-final against the Melbourne Renegades. The match was tied after 20 overs a side and a super over for each team would decide the grand finalist.
The Renegades made just six runs in their over and it was then Perry’s turn.
She strode to the crease with Australian teammate Alyssa Healy. Healy took strike. Single, single, single. Perry then opened her eyes wide and blasted Molly Strano over the ropes at wide long-on for six. Game over.
It made Ben Serpell, Perry’s high-performance guru and director of athletic performance and innovation at the Brumbies rugby union club, smile
“You look at the composure she displayed … often it takes years to develop that resilience,” Serpell says. “That’s the kind of stuff we’ve been chatting about over time, trying to give her that composure, alongside her physical side of things. It was exciting to watch, I was really proud of her.”
Serpell first met Perry — for a coffee, of course — at the start of 2015. He was working with Toomua at the Brumbies and Perry was keen to hear more.
It was rare for Serpell to be approached by another professional athlete.
“I just thought it was a really great chance to explore a different way of thinking,” Perry says. “You can’t be naive enough to think what you do in your own environment is enough.”
Serpell has guided Perry in the gym and on the track. He helped devise a program that has made her stronger and faster.
“He really improved my strength and power … the efficiency and ability for me to run well, both with and without a cricket ball in my hand,” Perry says. “At the time, I was still playing soccer as well, so it had a big impact on my soccer, too. I think it’s made me far more dynamic in the way that I move.”
Serpell says Perry is a listener and learner. She now has the skill and knowledge to build her own programs.
“What we showed her was a lot of things around developing speed, which has helped her running, given her a lot of trunk strength, and just treating her methods to maintain a lot of that rhythm as she’s running in to bowl,” he says. “Look at the power she’s playing with now.
“If she didn’t get all that base stuff in then and continually work on it over time, she wouldn’t get the opportunity to train as much. It’s not just about doing stuff, it’s about doing the right stuff.
“Upskilling in high performance has kind of just given her a bit of an edge. That’s her edge, her willingness to better herself in every possible way.
“Her edge is not just playing exceptionally well, her edge is learning every day to become better. And not just the best she can be, but the best. It’s a rare quality.”
It wasn’t Perry’s batting that shone on the international stage as Australia claimed the T20 World Cup title in the Caribbean in November. Perry was dropped down the order, batting at No. 7 in a move that shocked many.
Before the World Cup, Australia adopted a policy for its top order. You had to go hard or go home, and Perry’s strike rate wasn’t enough to secure a higher spot.
But rather than complain about the demotion, she turned her attention to bowling and fielding.
“Like most problems presented to her, she handled it brilliantly,” her dad says. “She can turn disappointment around into an opportunity to do something else.
“What she did, not being given the opportunity to bat higher, was to focus on her bowling a little bit more. She bowled some absolute pearls (at the World Cup) … she just got some really important wickets.
“She turned it around to be the best bowler that she can be. But also, she’s a magnificent fielder. Quite clearly, she would have been disappointed, but she wasn’t going to go around and tell everybody … she understood the reason behind it.”
Perry is at the peak of her powers, but no-one can play forever. Her future could well be in the high-performance area she has embraced to take her game to the next level.
“We’ve modelled a lot of things on existing male programs,” she says. “I’d love to be involved in innovation in that space and potentially having an impact on future generations of female athletes so that one, their experiences and welfare are really well looked after, but also because I think that’s going to make every one of those sports a better product.”
That’s Ellyse Perry. Always thinking. Never standing still.
The Australian Women’s cricket team will take on New Zealand in their first one-day international on Friday, February 22, at the WACA ground in Perth. The third one-day international will be at St Kilda’s Junction Oval on March 3.