For those of you who are unfamiliar with the program, Bluey is an animated show about "an inexhaustible six year-old Blue Heeler dog, who loves to play and turns everyday family life into extraordinary adventures, developing her imagination as well as her mental, physical and emotional resilience."
Everyone in the show is modelled after dog breeds, and once you watch one episode, you cannot stop. You could say the show is designed for young people, but from the parents I know, they are just as emotionally invested in the characters as their children - and it's hard not to be!
The significance of the episode goes beyond cricket, but indulge me this moment to relish in it.
We start this episode with a very classical Australian sight - a handful of families crowded around a synthetic cricket pitch in a local park. The opening scenes feature some very familiar moments: a small child launching the ball in the air for it to bounce too many times, and an even smaller child getting themselves out and giggling about it. Next comes the interplay of sibling rivalry and dads overestimating their abilities which most of us have witnessed in any neighbourhood cricket match. The six and out rule that features here is perfect - the satisfaction of hitting your brother for 6 is more important than batting for longer, which is absolutely right!
It's not until we meet Rusty that we realise where the story is going (and why my skill acq heart started to sing). When we hear Bluey ask to play tiggy instead, calling cricket nothing more than just "hitting a ball around the grass", all I hear is a recent conversation with Mark O'Sullivan, where he humbled me by calling cricket a "pass time" rather than a sport 😂
Rusty absolutely loves cricket. We catch glimpses of him scoring half centuries in his backyard with his siblings, and when they're not available, recreating the bane of every parents' existence by hitting a tennis ball against the wall of the house. I'm sure even reading this is enough to give my parents a headache! I just wanted to flag here that the individual practice is entirely self-led...
The plan to get Rusty out seems like a good one at the time, and its something I often try to teach youth athletes: bowling in certain areas then affords certain shots for some batters, so you can use this to set them up! My favourite part here is the backstory... "but we didn't know about Rusty's kitchen".
This is such a powerful line, and I'm not sure the writers knew the significance of this statement when they wrote it. The montage shows a seamless transition from the neighbourhood game to Rusty's backyard, where he hits the perfect square cut... through the kitchen window and hits his own mother! The only logical response here is to run away to avoid trouble.
There are many famous stories about kitchens like Rusty's. I wrote about it in my first ever journal article:
Informal play such as backyard cricket is highlighted as a key early learning environment for expert cricketers in the past, with family and friends shaping behaviour and promoting creative problem solving to avoid windows, orange trees or hitting against sloped driveways.38,55
I may have snuck in the orange tree reference there as a personal reference to my own backyard, which naturally coexists alongside the sloped driveways of the very famous Waughs...and this priceless excerpt from an old newspaper article about backyard cricket.
Worse still, I once whacked a ball so hard it smashed Mum and Dad's bedroom window. On Christmas Day.
It remains a career highlight.
“You've ruined Christmas,” my mother cried. Christmas? What about my backyard average?
The way Rusty practiced his square cut was impressive - setting up a target to hit towards, at the exact angle of the wall between two windows on the side of his house. It's infinitely better than the training sessions we are often subjected to in community cricket and honestly, he learns more from that interaction that I ever did on average across decades of cricket training. Needless to say, hitting play again on the Bluey episode then shows exactly what you think - Rusty splitting a very small gap at gully much to the dismay of the dads who thought they were clever.
Just when you think it can't get any better, the (animated) camera pans to the pitch, where we spy a cheeky crack in the ground which the new spin bowler could use to his advantage. The commentary here is too funny - "Stripe couldn't spin the ball to save himself" is a statement regularly heard in community cricket. Just as the ball hits the crack, we pan to a new environment that Rusty has been immersed in, this time the front yard of his friend's house.. which was full of dirt, tree roots, and a very inconsistent bounce whenever the ball hit the ground.
The dismay at getting bowled by a ball that has ricocheted 10 degrees to move past your bat is a less familiar feeling given how few people can truly do it - unless you've had the (dis)pleasure of facing one of my favourite cricketers (and people) in the world (like I have):
Needless to say, Stripe didn't stand a chance. This exposure to the uncertain bounce and the unfairness of having to respond to it speaks volumes to Rusty's character, as does the mutual celebration when Rusty finally hits his friend's bowling! I don't know a lot of players nowadays who would be willing to be that bad at something, to face such uncertainty over and over again knowing that it will take a while to learn to respond. I find myself presenting a number of workshops more recently about the messiness of learning, which I've written about previously, and I love how it features here!
They knew Rusty had to have a weak spot, and this time we flash back to a similar neighbourhood game where Rusty is playing with his older brother and some of his friends. This is a very common story, and if anything such interactions are known to play a role in athlete development more broadly so to see this seamlessly discussed in this episode was heartwarming. Again, I've mentioned this before:
While the presence of a sibling can positively influence skill and social development by providing a partner for unstructured play, they also form a source of emotional and instructional support, or a role model to younger siblings.40
The conversation between Rusty and his older brother to set expectations and remind him that just because he's younger, they won't take it easy on him is a defining moment. I think everyone deserves this moment. When someone is willing to challenge you, to push you beyond your capabilities for a moment, and then support you when it ultimately doesn't work out. The bravery to stand up and say yes, I'll give it a go is courage we should all dream to have.
I have limped home many times in the exact same way that Rusty does, able to count the stitches of the ball as the bruise blooms on my legs because I'm too stubborn to give up on playing men's cricket. It is my suffering to bear, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. To spur on Rusty, he gets a letter from his Dad, which includes a brilliant monologue:
"In life, you'll face things much harder than a (leather) cricket ball. In those moments, you'll have two choices: back away and get out, or step in front a play a pull shot."
When was the last time you stepped in front and played a pull shot?
The pace attack in the original neighbourhood match featured in this episode didn't work either. When they call for lunch, everyone runs off except for Rusty and the competitive dads who aren't willing to concede that they can't get him out. They call the classic "one more", but the voiceover reminds us that Rusty's love of cricket runs oh so deep, and he would happily play 50 more.
"Rusty would have smashed it into next week if he wanted to, but instead... he hit his little sister a catch."
The respect and admiration on the faces of all the dads spoke infinitely louder than the triumph of getting Rusty out. It is in that moment that they, too, are reminded that cricket is more than just hitting the ball around the grass.
It's a pure moment. One many of us have not witnessed in a long time. When this episode aired, I know so many people in the cricket world who were brought to tears, and I don't blame them at all. For the first time, I felt like the way I see cricket had been illustrated beautifully, in a way that people who have always questioned why I care could finally understand.
Did I just write a whole newsletter about a children's show and cricket? Yes. Do I regret it? Absolutely not.