Ryan Harris retirement: Gai Harris inspired her son’s lion-hearted performances

GAI Harris never got to see her boy Ryan become a Test hero, or even play for his country, but she was close to his heart the whole way.

Day 5 Test India v Australia

YOUR mum would have been proud, mate.

Gai Harris never got to see her boy become an Ashes hero, or even play for his country, but she was close to his heart the whole way.

Ryan Harris bowled 5736 deliveries in Test cricket but cricket websites don’t record how many times the tough Aussie fast bowler tapped his left chest at the start of every spell.

It was where the popular quick has a poignant tattoo — Mum — beneath her Virgo star sign.

Plenty were saying it was a tragedy that Harris retired just before an Ashes campaign that he had so doggedly willed his battle-scarred and aching body towards.

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It was sad, but not a tragedy. There are often no fairytales in sport, not even for the best players and the best blokes.

The real tragedy struck nine years earlier when Harris lost his much-loved Mum to cancer.

His Mum was his biggest supporter, and even when she was desperately ill she insisted he go to England to play league cricket to further his dreams in 2006.

She died suddenly only three weeks after he returned from the UK.

Everything Harris has done since on a cricket field has been in her honour — for the woman who used to rush from nearby offices down to Adelaide Oval whenever he was due to bowl for South Australia.

And Harris has done it with remarkable style and substance.

Ryan Harris in full flight struck fear into opponents. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

No bowler in the history of Test cricket has ever taken so many wickets (113) after making his debut at the age of 30. And especially considering his body had broken down more times than an old Kombi van.

His crowning glory was as the hobbling hero of the Cape Town Test of 2014 when he took seven wickets to spearhead an Australian series win.

Mitchell Johnson at the time summed up some of the pain Harris was enduring: ‘’You’ll be sitting in the viewing room when we’re batting and he’ll go ‘feel this’ and it’ll be a little bit of bone in his knee.’’

It was remarkable that Harris kept storming in during that Test, needing knee and hip surgery afterwards, and his attitude endeared him to millions of Australians.

The raw statistics of Harris’s late-blooming Test career (113 wickets at 23.52) are fabulous but the numbers don’t do him justice.

Ryan Harris celebrating a wicket just last week against Kent before being forced to retire.

Harris was a fast bowling version of Steve Waugh, someone who would charge through walls for his country and embodied the spirit of the baggy green.

For all the blood, sweat and tears on the pitch there was plenty more away from the cameras as he endured countless surgeries followed by relentless rehabilitation regimes.

Through it all, Harris stayed true to himself and was universally respected for his bravery to keep running in despite the visible pain.

And he was not only a champion bowler, but also a champion bloke.

Harris won’t be lost to cricket and will use his renowned determination to embark on a new career in coaching.

One journey might have ended but another — that of a future Australian coach in the making — is about to start.

Originally published as Ryan Harris retirement: Gai Harris inspired her son’s lion-hearted performances