Ed Cowan is an Australian test cricketer, investor, podcaster and author.
He’s one of those people whose name I jotted down 6 years ago when I started the show earmarked as a ‘dream guest’.
He played in a golden era of Australian cricket and did so at a time when I was obsessed with the sport myself (I had delusions about being a test cricketer) and therefore like the music of your youth those cricketers you grew up with leave a certain impression. I've since been a long time listener of his 'Scaling Up' podcast series and tune in weekly for the ABC Cricket Podcast where he is a co-host.
Ed has an occasionally controversial, but always influential voice on the Australian cricketing landscape.
It's an absolute pleasure to have recorded this with him.
He had 32 test innings for Australia across 18 matches, scored one test hundred and over 1000 runs in total.
You’ll find a link to both his book and his podcast here.
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It’s an enormous pleasure to have spoken with Ed, we discussed...
- How Ed always kept a foot in multiple worlds, even though it came at a cost.
- The transition out of professional sport and why so many athletes struggle with it.
- His mentor Peter Roebuck
- Mental health in cricket and how the culture has shifted.
- His Test career: the debut hundred, the weight of expectation, homework-gate, and his illness that coincided with the Ashes and the end of his international career.
- Ed’s views on IPL money, BBL privitisation and governance.
- The business of cricket: how he'd restructure Cricket Australia, player pay, and bringing patient, evergreen capital into the Big Bash.
- And, as always, the role serendipity has played in his life, to which, as an opening batsman, he had the perfect answer.
Timestamps...
00:00 — Realising a cricket career was possible
02:17 — Under-19s in Sri Lanka, surrounded by future Test players
07:38 — The transition myth: why it's a decade, not twelve months
14:08 — Do athletes have too much free time?
17:03 — Travel, brooding, and the Matthew Talbot shelter that shifted his perspective
27:02 — The Cricinfo depression piece
33:31 — NSW's logjam of talent and the fresh start in Tasmania
36:30 — Called up to Australia; the left-handed-opener mystery
39:36 — Peter Roebuck: discipline, mangoes, and the debut century dedicated to him
44:43 — The 18 innings: expectation, emotional regulation, homework-gate
50:42 — The Ashes, falling ill, and his final Test
54:00 — Resentment, selection, and "perception is reality"
55:12 — Death of a Gentleman, the IPL, and cricket's governance crisis
1:00:23 — Ambitions in cricket; the ABC podcast as a public service
1:08:08 — Privatising the Big Bash and bringing in patient capital
1:13:55 — Serendipity, Gideon Haig, and "I was an opening batsman"
Some choice snippets from the conversation.
On transition out of sport
"A lot of sportspeople think transition is your last twelve months of playing and your first twelve months of the real world. That's only a tiny speck of what it actually looks like. You come out of sport and you're at the bottom of the next mountain — you've got the tools to climb it, but that's another journey in and of itself."
On identity
"One of the thresholds is: do you still think of yourself as a cricketer? It's not part of my identity anymore at all. Some people say, 'You're the guy who used to play cricket.' Yeah, that was me. But that takes a while."
On the perspective that pulled him out of a funk (volunteering at the Matthew Talbot shelter)
"Here I was brooding over nicking one to second slip the day before. And here are guys who hadn't made any bad choices — they were just out of luck."
On the chip on his shoulder
"You think I'm not training hard enough? I'll beat you in the beep test. You think I'm not preparing properly? I'll get a hundred on the weekend."
On why cricket breeds brooders
"The output's objective. There's nothing subjective about getting a twenty-ball duck. And the time lag from error to atonement is long — it can be two days, and you're doing nothing.""The key to good mental health in cricket is celebrating your teammates' success. That's rarer than you'd think."
On the fresh start in Tasmania
"The joy of a fresh start is you can be whoever you want to be the moment you walk in the door. There's no judgment about what school you went to. You're judged from day one only."
On luck (the serendipity close)
"Two more centimetres of Morne Morkel's size-fourteen boot behind the line, and I'm out for forty-eight. No one remembers Ed Cowan, Test century.""The harder you work, the luckier you get. Luck can come and find you — but it's up to each individual to make that lucky moment count."
On the business of cricket
"Our best players probably don't get paid enough, and our worst players get paid too much.""An IPL owner's incentive is not to grow the Big Bash. It's to pillage the Big Bash so the IPL gets stronger."
Podcast Starter Packs
- Investigative Journalists
- Offshore Finance/Kleptocracy & Money Laundering
- Geopolitics/Economics/Economic Development
- Explorers & Adventurers
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