Mind games: The calculated return of Ellyse Perry

There was a moment during Australia's tour of India last December that neatly encapsulated the mentality of Ellyse Perry.

With the retirement of Rachael Haynes and with Meg Lanning away, Perry was selected in the T20I side after an absence of more than a year.

The previous summer, the 32-year-old had, for the first time, been dropped. With a T20I career strike-rate of 105.47 in a fast-changing short-format environment, Perry's skillset was no longer deemed indispensable to an all-conquering Australian side.

Eleven months later in Mumbai, and at her very first opportunity, she flipped that theory on its head. Coming to the crease at 2-5, Perry raced to 50 from 33 balls, finished with 75 from 47, and won Australia the match.

"You're always trying to evolve," she said afterward. "The game's moving forward at a rapid pace."

Image Id: 5E574926C62646D99B0AA64071263997 Image Caption: Perry's innings in the third T20I against India was match defining // Getty

It was classic Perry speak, avoiding specifics and diverting the attention from herself to the sport more broadly. But there also appeared to be a note of defiance; she hadn't worked half her life, overcoming injuries and dips in form, establishing herself as perhaps the greatest female cricketer of all time, only to give up because of a selection decision.

The moment arrived three days later, in the next match. This time, Perry walked out to bat with Australia effectively 3-46 (Alyssa Healy had retired hurt) in the seventh over. She scratched out her guard. Looked around the field. Eyed the approaching Radha Yadav.

"And then first ball, she played this lofted drive over mid-off for six," smiles Grace Harris, who was watching intently as next batter in. "I was like, 'How good!'"

Australia flew home with the series won, while their superstar allrounder – a figure who was once arguably bigger than women's cricket itself – had emphatically reasserted her standing. The game might be moving forward at a rapid pace, but Perry is very much keeping up.

"She was challenged with being dropped," says Ben Sawyer, a long-time mentor of Perry's, who has worked with her at domestic and international level.

"And she responded."

* * *

Not for the first time in her career, Ellyse Perry will enter uncharted territory for a female cricketer this winter, as she embarks on a record fifth Ashes tour. And while the increased regularity of scheduling certainly helps, it is nonetheless a remarkable achievement for a player who will next month tick off 16 years as an international cricketer.

It is a long time in one job, particularly given she was 16 when she started. At different stages, touring life must have become a grind. Sleepwalking through airports. Suffocation by routine. Of course, you will hear no such complaints pass the lips of Perry, who is quick and correct to note the privileged position she occupies in the world.

It is a tune she has hummed to the media since those formative years, though much else has changed in the intervening period, as she has moved from adolescent to young adult right through to veteran, playing more than 500 matches along the way.

"I don't think there's any secret at all," she says of her longevity. "More just really good fortune in a lot of senses."

Image Id: 984C323EA8304DE892B1BD0D369F0CC2 Image Caption: Perry had to evolve after being dropped from Australia's T20 side // Getty

Which we're not buying for a second, particularly in recent years, when a serious hamstring tear and back stress fractures might have pulled the finish line of less determined athletes much closer. No, Perry's Secret Sauce is her ability to repeatedly do what she did in Mumbai last December. Former Test quick Michael Kasprowicz, who took more than 950 first-class wickets across a 19-year career, likes to call it 'evolve or dissolve'. The anthropologically minded might know it as 'adapt or die'.

Consider this: one of the all-time great all-format batters only batted 52 times in her first 102 internationals. And of those, only twice did she come in higher than No.7. It wasn't until the 2013 Ashes tour – six years into her international career – that Perry began to transform into the dominant batter we know today; in a remarkable four-year purple patch, she averaged 79.21 in ODIs, scoring 22 fifties in 35 innings.

And this: Perry hasn't bowled her full complement of overs in an ODI since she took a career-best 7-22 on the 2019 Ashes tour. In 25 matches since, she has bowled more than five overs just four times, and never more than eight.

Change has been constant in her career. Viewed in that light, her T20I axing might have sowed the seed for what might in time be seen as Perry's Renaissance Years. In a radio interview with SEN shortly afterward, she described being dropped as only she can: "a really nice opportunity and challenge for me to improve in a couple of aspects of the shortest format".

"I suppose experiencing something from a different side of the fence is only a really good thing going forward in terms of understanding that," she added, "and in terms of what impact it has on me for the next little bit of my career."

Sawyer returns to the word 'challenge' in attempting to explain what drives Perry.

"For Ellyse, it's always been about, 'Here's a challenge, now what are the steps I've got to take to achieve a result?' he says. "And this was a challenge that was thrown at her to learn new skills."

Image Id: ED6EACD2E8F849ED907DA35CF8EE55E3 Image Caption: Perry trains under the watchful eye of Sawyer during the 2022 Ashes // Getty

In recent years, the key ingredient to Perry's Secret Sauce has also changed by necessity. The allrounder might have become adept at saying very little to the media on some subjects, but ask her about training – her habits or inspirations or beliefs – and her responses are insightful. 

"I've always really enjoyed the challenge of trying to get better, and for a large part of my career, and especially when I've been younger, a lot of that's had to do with just making physical improvements and technical improvements," she explains.

"I suppose you probably hit a bit of a ceiling with those things, and whilst you can still strive to improve, the gains become a lot more marginal.

"Whereas there's always capacity within your mind to explore new possibilities, and knowledge, and ways of looking at things.

"I like to read a lot, and talk to lots of different people, some of them from way outside the realms of cricket, which I think sometimes is really cool to just see things differently, and I guess not have the guise of cricket behind every conversation.

"Whether it's podcasts, or books … all those things kind of add up."

Sawyer confirms his star protégé indeed has an active and curious mind, particular on all matters coaching.

"She constantly sends me quotes about coaching," he says. "She sent me once a picture of a whiteboard where someone had written a whole heap of podcasts to listen to.

"I often quote her in my everyday coaching, just things I've learned from her along the way that I'll happily admit have come from her.

"She's taught me a hell of a lot more than I've taught her."

The notion that her mind has limitless potential appeals to Perry, for whom the concept of self-improvement has always been a driving force. She began trying to channel the idea in her training, attempting to free herself of the self-imposed parameters she had subconsciously placed on her batting across those 500 matches, which suddenly felt "restrictive". And so she set about changing her "state of mind".

"Rather than surviving with the way that I've always played, potentially breaking that down a little bit, and trying to be more creative and open to each opportunity and possibility that any kind of ball presents," she says.

"It's just been nice to look at things a little bit differently. When you play for a long time, it's easy to fall into this mode of just surviving a bit and doing the same thing because that has, to whatever extent, worked. And almost just reminding yourself to keep being creative and open to more possibilities.

"So that's been one thing – to open yourself up to thinking like that, and then the other side of it is developing a few different things technically with the bat that enables you to do that."

During the Women's Premier League in March, Perry swapped batting notes with Indian superstar Smriti Mandhana, whose contrasting journey to her own fascinated her, and in a sense, proved instructive.

Image Id: 3C024D398F514FE0AF3D513F0BF3B4FC Image Caption: Perry played for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2023 WPL // Getty

"She's never really had a coach, so she's learned a lot of that herself," she says. "I had a huge amount of appreciation for that – how much she's delved into learning as much as she can, in lots of different ways.

"And that probably speaks volumes for the way she bats, because she's always found different resources and ways to look at things and as such, kind of developed this wide range of shots and ability to play the game (in a way) that perhaps just having one coach wouldn't have done for her."

It was during that tournament that Sawyer noted one of those technical changes Perry referenced. Though she was playing a slightly different role with Royal Challengers Bangalore at No.3 compared to the license she has been given further down the order with Australia, she was still able to showcase elements of her latest evolution.

"She is very open to ideas, but the bit I respect most about it is she will want to know the why," Sawyer says. "She'll do the investigating into, 'Will that work?'

"She's always been amazing at cutting the ball and playing through the offside and driving, but now she's developed a little lap, which opens up the leg side and means a fielder has to move there, and then all of a sudden, her strengths aren't being defended as well.

"That's how she's (improved her scoring rate) so well. She's been moving around the crease at times as well, just to open up different angles, but it's actually been about, 'What can I learn to add to what I've already got?' as opposed to changing everything.

"All of those things are actually about maximising the strengths she already has."

The two innings in Mumbai (75 and 72no) were Perry's two highest T20I scores. Since returning to the side, she has struck at 156.66 while averaging 56.40. Three of her seven T20I fifties have come in those 13 innings, compared to four in 126 beforehand. So too have 10 of her 33 sixes. It has been a stunning reinvention, and with Harris and Ashleigh Gardner, she has quickly formed a lethal middle-order combination.

"She's always had the technique," says Harris. "Now she has the intent to actually have a crack over the top when she wants to, and she's got the freedom to do it because that's what she's been told to do. The three of us in the middle order, we're backed in to do that."

Put to her, Perry doesn't disagree with Harris's sentiment, though she prefers to put her own spin on matters.

"It's such a personal outlook when it comes to batting," she says. "The word 'freedom' gets used a lot. So does the word 'intent', or 'fearlessness', and I think it really just depends on how that lands with any individual.

"To me, it's just about being open to new possibilities, and being a bit more creative in that, rather than going back to something that already exists. It's just not restricting the way you play to the way that you've always played … (and) seeing different possibilities to the same ball, and making a decision on what you're going to do with that ball based on intuition more than a script or a set of constraints that you've built in for yourself.

"Maybe that's a bit too like philosophical for most people, but that's been a way for me to see the game a little bit differently from my batting stance to perhaps how I have before."

* * *

Just last week, under a cloudless Brisbane sky on the final day of Autumn, Perry was at it again. Four days after the national group had been rocked by the news of their captain Meg Lanning being unavailable for the Ashes, the players met at Geoff Dymock Oval in Brisbane's northern suburbs for an intra-squad match.

The contest loomed as preparation for their forthcoming Test against England. Instead of coming in at four, where she averages 110 in Test cricket, Perry walked to the crease at the fall of the first wicket, where she has never batted in the Baggy Green.

Facing the unfamiliar Dukes ball, she promptly peeled off an unbeaten century.

For Sawyer, it comes back to her guiding principle. While the allrounder has shown herself to be a master of reinvention, some important foundations have remained the same.

"I remember as her Sixers coach, we wanted her to play a role that set a bit of a base, and then come home (fast) at the back (of an innings)," he says. "She did that, and that's the thing about her – she will always do what's best for the team.

"She obviously got the message from Aussie selectors that they wanted her to start a little bit quicker. She's taken that advice on board and implemented that … so that the team can win.

"I think in the end, she will do whatever it takes to win matches for her side. She'll adapt to win matches, and that's an unbelievable talent and quality to have as a cricketer."

CommBank Ashes Tour of the UK 2023

Australia squad: Alyssa Healy (c), Tahlia McGrath (vc), Darcie Brown, Ashleigh Gardner, Kim Garth, Grace Harris, Jess Jonassen, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Wareham

Test: June 22-26 at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 11am local (7pm AEST)

First T20I: July 1 at Edgbaston, Birmingham, 6.35pm (3.35am July 2 AEST)

Second T20I: July 5 at The Oval, London, 6.35pm (3.35am July 6 AEST)

Third T20I: July 8 at Lord’s, London, 6.35pm (3.35am July 9 AEST)

First ODI: July 12 at The County Ground, Bristol, 1pm (10pm AEST)

Second ODI: July 16 at The Rose Bowl, Southampton, 11am (7pm AEST)

Third ODI: July 18 at The County Ground, Taunton, 1pm (10pm AEST)