Alex is firing on all cylinders after that Carey-on at Lord’s

The next stop on the Alex Carey Redemption Tour takes us to Lord’s, the hallowed turf where his career seemingly took a turn.

Next stop on the Alex Carey Redemption Tour takes us to Lord’s. Picture: Stu Forster/Getty Images

I bumped into the Carey family a day before leaving for New Zealand in February. We were at the Fringe Festival in Adelaide. I was I the same queue with five-year-old Louis, Alex and Eloise’s son, for candy floss. He went for the double-coloured flavour while I chose the multi-coloured option. And I could see Louis judging my selection from the corner of his eye, as his mother spoke about their impending trip across the Tasman to spend time with Alex, who was already there with the Australian team.

“It’ll be my first time to New Zealand,” Louis chimed in as Eloise informed me about the family’s holiday plans on the South Island once the Test series was done.

The next time I met Louis was a month later, at the end of the second Test in Christchurch, where his dad, Alex, had starred with the bat and produced arguably his best knock ever in the format. An unbeaten 98 that had taken Australia home in a nervy finish at a heaving Hagley Oval, which till 30 minutes earlier was in full voice expecting a first Test win for the Black Caps over their arch nemeses on home soil since 1993. That is before Australia’s stylish wicket-keeper found a way to victory for his team, having walked out to bat with the score reading 5/80 and the target still 199 runs away.

And post-match, Louis was as unstoppable as the senior Carey had been out in the middle. If he wasn’t running around with Alex’s player of the match medal and showing it off to everyone around, he was jumping into the camera shot while I interviewed Carey for SEN radio. That is when he wasn’t entertaining the other Australian players and their kids. For the record, there was no candy floss stall at Hagley. Not like Louis seemed to need any sugar to be high on life that evening.

The entire Australian contingent was up and about around him after all. It was a terrific come-from-behind Test win, and one that sealed the two-match series as well. Carey ironically seemed the least animated of the lot. Not that he’s generally very expressive, in an over-the-top way anyway. But you couldn’t help but sense a tinge of relief alongside the understandable sense of pride over what he’d accomplished.

For, it’s safe to say, that when Carey had walked out to the middle a few hours earlier, his Test career was for all practical purposes on the line. The South Australian had arrived in New Zealand on the back of a rather disappointing home summer where he managed a solitary half-century. His return in the three innings prior to the run-chase were 10 and 3 in Wellington and 14 in the first innings in Christchurch. His Test average had dropped under 30 for the first time in two years. Having lost his place in the ODI playing XI after only one match in the 2023 World Cup, this knock from Carey had an unmistakable air of ‘now nor never’ with regards to his entire international career. But even after having re-ascertained himself as Australia’s premier Test wicket-keeper for the upcoming home summer and beyond, his white-ball career still seemed to be in limbo, if not halted for good.

Yet here we are in late September with Carey having produced back-to-back scores of significance, 74 to set up Australia’s ODI win in Leeds and a valiant 77 not out in Durham. And though he only got his place back because of the incumbent Josh Inglis having suffered an injury in the T20Is, it’d be tough for the selectors to suddenly push Carey out again. Not when he seems to be more on top of his batting game at this level than ever before.

How poetic then that the next stop on the Alex Carey Redemption Tour takes us to Lord’s. The hallowed turf where Carey’s career, which then seemed to be on an upswing, seemingly took a turn. Even if all he did was abide by the laws of the game and in very legal and ethical fashion stumped out Jonny Bairstow.

What followed at Lord’s, with the privileged MCC members losing their privileged sanity, has been well-publicised both in print and now in a documentary. But the impact it had on Carey’s performances from that point on have always been up for debate. There was of course an undeniable drop in form, purely in terms of statistics. Carey had gone into that second Ashes Test with his batting average on the rise at 35.56, only for it to drop by six points by the time he batted in Christchurch eight months later. He’d also as mentioned earlier lost his ODI spot, which had been his for nearly five years. I was there in Lucknow the day he found out about being dropped for Australia’s second World Cup match. There he sat on an eskee staring blankly into the distance.

Carey was quoted after his Leeds knock that he didn’t mind being booed by the English crowds now. In contrast, you could see it affecting him last year during the last three Ashes Tests, being turned into the biggest villain in England. This is an affable, soft-spoken man and everyone’s favourite teammate who after all isn’t used to being unpopular.

The fact that he’s taking all the negativity thrust on him from the English crowds this year in his stride is perhaps a bigger sign of where he is in relation to his life and his career. Along with the self-confidence with which he’s going about his cricket.

I remember interviewing Dylan Shiel, Essendon midfielder and former housemate of Carey’s, during the 2019 World Cup. The aspects of Carey’s footy game that Shiel raved about the most was his heart, his willingness to put his body and mind on the line for his team, and most importantly his resilience. All three characteristics that have shone through in his powerful return to form in his last three international outings.

And what better than to have Stuart Broad, who’d infamously declared, “that’s all you’ll be remembered for,” to Carey after the Bairstow incident, be the one singing his praises the most on commentary. As he will be again at Lord’s. Almost as sweet as the candy floss that Louis and I tucked into back in February.