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Why did I leave Australia to play cricket in England, in 1990? Simple. Because Im English.I became good mates with Brian Lara because I was the first person to hit him on the head - in an Under-19 Test Match, playing for Australia.In Australia, Test cricket has always come before first-class cricket, but when I first came over, in England, it was all about county cricket and the England team second.I didnt take myself seriously with the bat. Of course I was shit. But I loved it. I hooked Wasim Akram for a six once.The plan was always to play for England. Some politics kept me out of the side for a while.I made my first-class debut for Western Australia in the 1987-88 Sheffield Shield final. I wasnt even in the state squad, but Bruce Reid and Peter Capes got injured and the back-up bowlers werent thought to be good enough to play against Queensland. One of the senior players, Wayne Andrews, said, I know a young bloke wholl walk into the team and do a bloody good job. And that was me.I played my last three years with a broken rib that wouldnt heal.Rodney Marsh thought I should have been in the 1989 Australian Ashes squad. Shane Warne thought I should have had 80 Tests for England.In my first year I came to Hampshire and played for the second team. They said I couldnt play for the first team because of the politics, they said I wasnt English. Graham Gooch tried to get me to play for Essex, and I said no. So for the next five or six years, all Graham Gooch had to say was, Hows this guy playing county cricket? Hes not even English. Thats why I wasnt picked for England.It took a few years and a lot of wickets to prove that I was English and good enough to play for England. There were no Kolpak players back then. These days if you can pick out where England is on the map, you can qualify and get a game for England.In 1990 I had 27 days straight on the road, up and down the country, playing county cricket.They invited me down to practice [before the 1987-88 Shield final] and about two seconds after I arrived, I had a camera shoved in my face and I was asked what it was like to be playing in the Shield final. Id been following the West Indies and didnt even realise there was a Shield game on. I remember bowling to Kim Hughes and Graeme Wood in the nets, so I bowled pretty quick, put a few round their heads a few times, and then Graeme Wood said, Youre playing in the final.I bought a one-way airline ticket when I left Australia, aged 18.I hooked Allan Donald for a six once, and before the next ball, Darren Gough, who was batting with me, says, Hes going to kill you now. Next ball, Donald bounced me and it hit me on the side of the neck.The only time I ever saw Warne lose 100% focus was when he was bowling round the wicket, against Surrey, with two men on the leg side, trying to bowl the batsmen round their legs. The ECB had this stupid rule back then, where they told umpires to call wide if a spinner bowled one down the leg side. To stop negative bowling. So Warney bowled it there, it missed the batsmans leg by a whisker and then turned so much that the wicketkeeper took it outside the off stump. And the umpire wided him. Ridiculous.In Australia, when you get picked for your country its a huge deal and everyone knows about it. When I got picked for England, I found out through a phone call, down in the office at Leicestershire, from Sky Television, saying, We want to interview you about playing cricket for England on Sunday. Oh, brilliant. Im playing, am I? No ones told me.Im writing my autobiography. Itll be out next summer. It wont be boring because Im not boring.How they ran the show back then was a bit of a joke. Jon Agnew tells a story of how he was picked to play for England. Hes turned up in the dressing room. David Gower, the England captain, was his team-mate at Leicestershire. And he said to Aggers: What are you doing here? And he said, You should bloody know, you picked me.Playing club cricket, I hit a guy called Jason Constable in the head and nearly killed him. He didnt wear a helmet.In my first Test, I guided Nasser Hussain through to his first England hundred. The first ball Javagal Srinath bowled to me, I tried to give it the old Gordon Greenidge - off the back foot on the up through the covers. Played and missed. Hussain came down the wicket. He didnt know what to say. He was close to a hundred. Just watch the ball and stick around. I said, Yeah, no problem man. A few balls later I hooked one for four. Hussain made his hundred, and then soon after, he got out, hooking, caught fine leg. We were walking off and I said, Jesus Christ, Hussain. Youve cost me another fifty.My batting went from bad to incredibly worse over the next few years.Mark Nicholas once said on commentary that Mullally brings a relaxed and calm aura to the England team.Steve Waugh tried to give me his mental disintegration. I bowled round the wicket and he blocked it. And he said, What do you follow-through so far for, Mullally? Anyone would think youre a fast bowler. And I said, Look, Mr Stephen Waugh, the reason I follow through so far is because Im a very poor athlete and it takes a long time to put the brakes on. He didnt know what to say then.The way England did things was not the best, and thats why we werent the best.We were crap in the 1999 World Cup. Against Zimbabwe we should have knocked off the 170 we needed to win in 30 overs. Then wed have been through on run rate, whether we beat India or not. The lads out there were having a net session. In the dressing room, me and Goughie were tearing our hair out, thinking, Any chance of playing some shots? Then we lost against India and were out.When you bowled a bouncer to a batsman and they pulled it in front of square for four rather than jumping out the way, you knew it was time to give up.We were playing a one-dayer at Lords, and on the big screen up came a list of the top ten one-day bowlers in the world. I was No. 2 and Goughie was No. 7. He was at mid-on and he said, How are you in front of me? Youre no better than me. And I said, Well, Goughie, obviously I am. Next ball, I said to him, Joking aside, theres you at No. 7 in the world and me at No. 2, and that doesnt guarantee well get picked next game.I may have been technically rubbish with the bat, but I wasnt scared of the ball.Curtly Ambrose once said that he doesnt try to get the batsmen out. The batsmen need to score, so they get themselves out, so his job was to keep it tight. Thats about right for me too. Especially with the right-handers - youd just put it across them and theyd nick it. So that was my theory in one-day cricket. With a few slower balls and yorkers.I was a team player, wanted to win games first. Performances and records came second.In Test cricket I prided myself on dragging it back. Goughie would come on, Dominic Cork would come on, or Chris Lewis. And if you look at the record, theyd be going for five or six runs an over in a Test match. They were very selfish and wanted their own glory. When people say fast bowlers should hunt in pairs, or bowl in partnerships, they never did that, they were too selfish. So whenever I came on, I felt I had to go into one-day mode and try and tidy things up, rather than have three slips, a gully and short leg. Do what I did for Leicestershire.I signed for Hampshire on the back of a receipt in a pub, after dinner with Rod Bransgrove.There were so many things that were wrong with the England team when I played. They expected instant results. So theyd pick a team and if they didnt win the match or the series with flying colours, theyd change the side. I dont recall whether I played a Test or one-day match with the same XI twice. Graeme Hick was dropped and recalled something like 11 or 12 times in his Test career. You just cant do that. One of the best batsmen Id ever seen bat, or bowled against, and he was treated shockingly.Andy Roberts once said, Every days fishing day but you dont always catch fish.[Glenn] McGrath was getting stuck into me with his mouth once. And I said, Im not interested in your gobshite. If you want to have a full go, Ill meet you round the back after the game. He got fined three and a half grand and he bought me a beer afterwards, and he goes, Al, that beer just cost me three and a half grand. And we laughed about it. If you bowl three maidens in a row, youll create wicket-taking chances.In the Melbourne Test, 1998-99, Justin Langer said to me it was one of the best spells of bowling hed seen me bowl. We won the game, against one of the best sides theres ever been, and for the Sydney Test, Alec Stewart, the captain, comes over with Gooch, the manager, and says, Youre not playing in this Test match, were picking Alex Tudor for the extra pace. I was bowling 88mph in the Melbourne Test. He came in at Sydney and bowled 80mph. Go figure.It wasnt hard to give up playing. A lot of people retire bitter, think that they can do it forever. You cant. I always realised that. There was nothing particularly hard to give up.I faced Ian Botham in my first Shield game, and before that I thought he was the quickest bowler going. He turned out to be just medium-fast. Not like the guys I faced a few years later - Patrick Patterson, Wasim Akram, Malcolm Marshall and the rest.Whenever Alec Stewart didnt get any runs, hed pull out his gloves and start practising his keeping next to Jack Russell.In my last Test, Brett Lee was bowling seriously quick and Warney from slip said, At least youve got the guts to get behind it. The rest of them have been shitting themselves.I had an eye test and my vision came back 20-20 perfect. I couldnt understand it. I told the doctor, It cant be perfect. Have you seen me bat? I cant see the ball. And the doctor said, Have you ever thought that youre just rubbish at batting?David Lloyd, when he was England coach, said that hed buy me 30 pints of Guinness if I could score 30 against Pakistan. I got to 24, gave the dressing room the signal to get them in, and then Wasim Akram bowled me with a slower ball. Walking off, I told him that he was an idiot because he could have shared the Guinness with me. Wasim said that if Id told him about Bumbles promise, he would have bowled half-volleys to get me to 30.If you look back in 20 years time and can say that you played cricket with Shane Warne, thats something to be proud of. It would have been the same had Don Bradman played county cricket.Follow Alan Mullally on Facebook and @alanspidermulla St.Louis Blues Pro Shop . But the quarterback hopes to stay involved in football after officially calling it quits Tuesday. "Id love to look at those opportunities as they arise," Pierce said in an interview from his Winnipeg eatery. Blues Jerseys China . -- Mike Smith never saw his first NHL goal go in. https://www.cheapblues.com/ . 24 Baylor in a Big 12 clash between teams trending in opposite directions. Andrew Wiggins made 10-of-12 from the foul line and scored 17 for Kansas (14-4, 5-0 Big 12), which capped a stretch of four straight games against ranked opponents unscathed. St.Louis Blues Shirts . -- Jaye Marie Green shot a 4-under 68 on Thursday to increase her lead to five strokes after the second round of the LPGA Tours qualifying tournament. St.Louis Blues Gear .com) - The Pittsburgh Penguins placed forward James Neal on injured reserve Tuesday. Wallabies coach Michael Cheika is keeping the All Blacks guessing, delaying his team naming until the eve of Saturdays Bledisloe Cup finale in Auckland.Cheika is weighing up the pros and cons of thrusting rookie locks Rory Arnold and Adam Coleman into the Eden Park cauldron or recall the reliable second-row pairing of Kane Douglas and chief lineout caller Rob Simmons.Anything but a dead rubber, Australia must stop the All Blacks juggernaut to avoid becoming the first Wallabies outfit in 117 years of international rugby to be whitewashed 3-0 by two nations in the same season.Cheika has shuffled his second row all year, mixing and matching Coleman and Arnold with Simmons, Douglas, Sam Carter and Will Skelton.Cheika worked Douglas and Simmons in tandem at Thursdays training session in Sydney, alternating the experienced duo with first-year internationals Coleman and Arnold.Coleman and Arnold started in Australias last-up win over Argentina at Twickenham but staring down the world champions for the first time together - on their home turf and at a venue where they are unbeaten against all comers since 1994 - is a whole new proposition.Cheika is also believed to be weighing up whether to rush star loose forward Daavid Pocock straight back into his starting line-up after a month out following hand surgery.ddddddddddddLopeti Timani started at No.8 against the Pumas, but Cheika is likely to revert to a back row of Pocock, Michael Hooper and either Scott Fardy or fellow lineout option Dean Mumm as blindside flanker.Australias international coach of the year is also understood to be toying with the idea of shifting Bernard Foley back to five-eighth and bringing Reece Hodge from the wing into his preferred inside centre position.That would leave Quade Cooper starting from the bench and either Henry Speight or fellow Fiji-born flyer Sefa Naivalu to start on the wing.Israel Folau is again likely to start at fullback despite more calls for the two-time John Eales Medallist to be shifted to outside centre.Nick Phipps is expected to replace Will Genia after the in-form halfbacks return to his French club commitments, though Cheika could decide to give Nick Frisby a start.Despite the Bledisloe Cup already being lost for another year, the Wallabies are desperate to break their 30-year Eden Park hoodoo. 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