Life Outside Cricket: Matthew Wade

The ACA partnered with The Grade Cricketer for a special podcast series throughout National Careers Week showcasing some of our members' passions and lives away from the game of cricket.

In the first episode, Australian batter Matthew Wade opens up about what brought about is rise to a recall to international cricket as well as where he sees his career going in future.

Some of the best bits of Matthew Wade are below, or you can listen to the full episode here.

What do you do away from the game?

I started an apprenticeship a little while ago now when I thought my cricket career at an international level was coming to a grinding halt. Things picked up again so that’s been put on hold for now and in my downtime, I’m spending time with my kids.

How did you get into carpentry, why’d you land on choosing that?

The end goal for me was to get into property development so I felt I needed to upskill at least a little bit to know a few things.

I’d bought an investment property and I was taking the old kitchen out and putting a new one in and I think I ended up calling my mate who is a builder about 25 times in an hour asking him questions, I thought this is ridiculous and I need to do something about it. I didn’t want to be a burden on the job site, I wanted to be useful if I ended up going the development path post-cricket.

Matthew Wade on how important the apprenticeship has been for him...

I didn’t think it would have any mental effect on my cricket, I didn’t think it would help my cricket at all but looking back it is easily one of the better decisions I’ve made for cricket and for life.

To wake up at 5am for the gym, go onto the job site for eight or so hours, get in the car, pick my daughter up and go home was a structure and normality I’ve never had in my entire life. I really enjoyed it and it certainly helped me in my life and in my cricket.

On where his rounded view of where cricket exists in his life comes from and why?

I think there were a range of things that got me to that space and I think moving home to Hobart was one of them.

I was in Victoria at the age of 16 and for 10 years didn’t have a family structure around me outside of cricket, most of my mates in Melbourne were cricket people or sportspeople. So to come home and actually have a life outside of cricket and put it into perspective for me made a huge difference. Having kids was another huge part of it.

When you saw me at Edgbaston, I was just free you know, no longer in the headspace of if I make a decent score here, I’ll still be on contract or if I make a score here, I’ll be in the team for the next few matches.