The four-word WhatsApp message that ended Andrew Fekete’s Test debut dream

Andrew Fekete was set for his Test debut, before it was abruptly cancelled after a shock murder. He never had the chance to play for Australia again. DANIEL CHERNY explores the players who almost made it big in our new No Test Wonders series.

“Mitchell Starc removed you.”

With those four words that popped up in a WhatsApp chat, Andrew Fekete’s extremely fleeting dalliance with life as a Test cricketer was over.

Test cricket could almost have been designed for trivia questions like this one: identify an uncapped paceman named in Australia’s squad for a tour that never ended up happening.

Quirkily enough there are a couple of recent answers to this poser. The first is Queenslander Mark Steketee, named in the squad to head to South Africa in early 2021, a trip that did not materialise because of Covid-19-related concerns.

Then there is Steketee’s partner-in-rhyme.

Even without being in the national conversation Fekete’s career was remarkable enough given he only picked up a state contract at 27, spending six years in Tasmania sandwiched by a handful of appearances for his home state of Victoria, where he again lives and works in finance at the AFL.

Andrew Fekete during a One Day game for Victoria in 2019. Picture: Michael Klein

By the time he moved to the Apple Isle he’d already been working for a couple of years at PwC. But he had impressed in Premier Cricket for Richmond and Camberwell and in a sole state one-dayer for the Vics, where his foot was broken by now-TV reporter Theo Doropolous. Tassie officials, always on the lookout for talent from the mainland, liked what they saw.

It wasn’t until Fekete was 29 that things really took off though.

Thirty-seven Sheffield Shield wickets across the 2014-15 season yielded him the Ricky Ponting Medal as Tassie’s player of the year and spawned a berth on the Australia A tour of India that overlapped with the Ashes series in England.

Playing against a team including Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and KL Rahul, Fekete was solid if not spectacular bowling in the low to mid 130km/h range. But one thing he could do was generate reverse swing, a skill thought of highly by national selectors looking at a tour in Asia.

Back from India, Fekete had a missed call from chairman of selectors Rod Marsh. He’d been called-up for October’s two-Test series in Bangladesh, part of a new-look squad also including Cameron Bancroft and without the retired Michael Clarke and Chris Rogers or the rested Mitchell Johnson.

Andrew Fekete was called up for a Test series in Bangladesh which never happened.

It was an incredible rise from a late-bloomer who had been on the fringes of his state team 12 months earlier.

But almost as soon as he was in, there was doubt about whether the tour would go ahead. Australia hadn’t played a Test series in Bangladesh in nine years.

An Italian aid worker was killed in Dhaka only a couple of weeks after the squad was picked, with Islamic State taking responsibility for the murder.

DFAT was advising Cricket Australia not to proceed with the tour, and the writing was soon on the wall.

Fekete remembers that some of the more senior members of the squad were ambivalent about touring, whereas those who hadn’t yet had a taste of international cricketer were prepared.

“I remember talking to Cameron Bancroft. He would have taken a bullet to play for Australia,” Fekete said.

“But then if we’ve got family friends, travelling over, if something happened to them you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. So for whatever reason it wasn’t meant to be and that’s fine.”

Tasmanian fast bowler Andrew Fekete after he was called up for the Australian team. Picture: Sam Rosewarne

A tour for which the squad was named in mid-September had been officially scrapped by October 1.

With Johnson back for the home summer, Fekete knew he was unlikely to be part of the squad for the first Test against New Zealand in Brisbane. He got the call from a selector to confirm the news, and then before he knew it he had been clinically removed from the team WhatsApp group.

He also found Shield cricket a tougher gig this time around. Partly it was because he had become a known proposition who opponents were better equipped to combat. But some of it was also self-inflicted.

“I tried harder. Tried to bowl quicker, have more an impact, take more wickets, keep your name up there in a sense,” Fekete said.

“As the season progressed, I reckon I had stress fractures by Christmas time. I pulled out of the last Shield game because I was basically in tears when I was bowling. Went off for scans and found out I had stressies in my lower back.”

Andrew Fekete bowls for the Camberwell Magpies in 2021. Picture: Andy Brownbill

There was one mildly amusing postscript. Late in October, Fekete and Xavier Doherty were trying to hang on for a draw against Johnson’s Western Australia under lights at the WACA.

Fekete said only one other time - facing Doug Bollinger in a similar situation - had he ever felt as alone on the field as the one ball he needed to confront from Johnson who had just removed George Bailey, who had been soaking up the firebrand’s offerings to that point.

“I go out to bat and Dohy goes ‘f*** I guess I’d better take Mitch,’” Fekete said.

“Mitch is steaming in. You know it’s going to be fast. I didn’t see it. It skimmed the back of neck.”

With Doherty then assuming responsibility of facing Johnson the following over, Fekete was told in no uncertain terms what Johnson thought of his decision to get out of the way.

“Mitch is at mid-off and he just abused the actual f*** out of me. ‘You think you’re good enough to play Test cricket and yet you can’t face a Test cricketer.’ All valid points Mitch. I was just happy to be able to walk off the field alive,” Fekete said.

Andrew Fekete claimed silverware with Victoria. Picture: AAP

Despite missing out on that Test tour, Fekete is still proud of what he achieved during his state career, winning silverware with the Vics when he returned home in 2018. His last professional match came in early 2020, and he reflects fondly on his journey. He has some team gear and the memory of one day of training at Sydney’s Hurstville Oval to mark his fortnight as an Australian cricketer.

“Possibly if you played for any other country, you might have got an opportunity. (But) Australian fast bowling has been so strong for so long.”

* This is the first interview Code Sports is running in a series on No Test Wonders.