Steve Waugh's New Horizons

Fatherhood has given tough, uncompromising Steve Waugh a new perspective on life. While dozens of Australians rushed to make England a home away from home, Australia's captain was content to catch his breath and actively pursue a new interest. Ken Piesse reports...

When Steve Waugh first saw the streets of downtown Mumbai, he was amazed. Even for a kid born and raised in Sydney's rough and tumble west, nothing could prepare him for the confronting sights of beggars, people without limbs and children, all scavenging for money.

Nothing affected him more deeply, though, than to see young children sleeping on street corners with rats running over them. He could not get used to the smell of the city, the atrocities or the scorned left to die.

For years during Australian tours he felt overwhelmed and helpless. The opportunity, however, to meet with noted humanitarian Mother Teresa added a fresh perspective. Here was a tiny, frail lady, bent over with arthritis, slowly shuffling around, oblivious to her own ills and championing the welfare of others. "There was a calming aura about her," Waugh said. "When you were in her presence you definitely felt more serene and peaceful."

Of all the celebrity encounters he had enjoyed, from the Queen to Nelson Mandela and Sir Elton John, this was by far the most important and powerful. Just as thousands of others had gained strength from shaking Mother Teresa's hand and receiving her saintly blessings, so did Waugh. Now, in places like India where cricketers are feted like movie stars, Waugh has a godlike status and not only for his deeds with cricket's world champions.

In Calcutta, for example, Waugh is a hero for the masses as patron of the Udayan Children's Fund, which is assisting deprived children with leprosy. He spearheaded a $A250,000 fund-raiser which is allowing 44 young girls to live for a year in Udayan, away from the seat of infection - their homes - and in healthy, positive and caring circumstances.

"When I was back in India recently, I went in for a photo with these 44 young girls, who had all come from leper colonies," Waugh said. "All of them wanted to come up and just touch me. Their family life was so terrible, they were desperate for affection. It makes you feel good to know that in some small way, you're helping these kids."

One of Waugh's dreams is for an entire new wing to be built at Udayan, allowing 250 girls to be housed, counselled and educated so they, too, have a chance of a healthier and more rewarding life. Already there is a boy's wing, but land is scarce and very costly. "It's a big process," Waugh says. "The most needy kids have to be selected and teachers employed for them. But it is so very rewarding. You can see the kid's lives changing in front of you. You can't put a price on that. Achievements on the sporting field are great, but after all this is only a game. When you help people out, realistically it's more important."

Waugh says his travels, especially to poverty stricken areas such as the Barrackpore leper colony in Calcutta, Kingston's Boy's Town and the black township of Soweto in South Africa, are a disturbing, impossible-to-ignore reminder of the world's imbalances. In Soweto, for example, many families live in ramshackle tin sheds hardly bigger than an average sized garage. Yet just an hour away is Sun City, the millionaire's playground.

In Australia in May, Waugh spent a week promoting Camp Quality, for children who suffer from cancer. He found the work enormously rewarding and believes more high-profile, influential people have a certain moral responsibility also to become involved with charities for the young and the old.

"The more you help people the more you grow as a person and feel good about yourself," he said. "And in return you're helping someone else. It's a win-win situation. You see kids with a tough lifestyle and yet by doing just one little thing, you can help make them happier. Many are in a bad way, or dying, but their inner strength and courage are incredible."

Given more time, Waugh says he would become even more active in charity work. He and his wife Lynette have seen the agony and the trauma close friends have endured with sick children who have died. It was another motivating reason for his involvement in Australia's Lend A Hand campaign aimed at raising $1m to give young cancer sufferers a quality of life others take for granted. Just as lepers are ostracised in Mumbai and Calcutta, he says many prefer to ignore Australia's 4,000 cancer children.

He just has to look at his own daughter, four-year-old Rosie banging away at the family piano or eight-month-old son Austin, to realise how precious life is. "One smile from them and you forget all your worries," he said.

Until April and the conclusion of the first leg of a two-tiered one-day tournament with South Africa, Waugh said he had been away from Sydney so often in the previous two years that it took him weeks to truly settle back into home life. "It's as if I hadn't been home for two years," he said. "Normally you unpack, say hello, goodbye and then you're back into it again."

Having just turned 35 and about to lead Australia in the first ever set of One-Day Internationals indoors against South Africa at Melbourne's newly built Colonial Stadium, Waugh says his focus and passion for the game remain constant. He would love to make a Test triple-century and, from November, to extend Australia's record of 10 consecutive Test victories past the current world record of 11, held by Clive Lloyd's 1984/85 West Indians.

He is also on the verge of becoming the first Australian to amass 300 One-Day International appearances and of surpassing Allan Border's awesome record of 429 international games.

Being named as Mark Taylor's full-time successor in January 1999 has been challenging and highly fulfilling, and has changed his perspective on the game. "Sometimes you need challenges to keep you going and the captaincy has given me that," he said. "It took a while to find my feet but I've really appreciated the opportunity. It's a great honour. Things are going well and I'd like to do it for a bit longer."

He says time off away from the game is precious and highly necessary in his case to nurse his battle-scarred legs. However, he refuses to consider stepping down from the one-day team to concentrate on Test cricket. "Cricketers like getting into the routine of playing and training. The problem comes sometimes when you have a bit of time off and it can be hard to get up again and get going. I want to play for Australia at both codes and be captain at both codes. If I'm not good enough or injury prevents me, then I won't."

He says a county cricket return à la David Boon is unlikely as his priorities have changed. "Maybe I'm too old. I haven't had too many offers for a while!" he said. "But there are other things in life which are just as important if not more so now; things like spending time at home and having a normal lifestyle and seeing your friends and family, some of whom I haven't seen for a couple of years. There would have to be exceptional circumstances for me to go back."

No one has been more mortified than Waugh to see the game's name tarnished by the match-fixing scandal. He firmly believes 99 per cent of the games in which he has played have been beyond reproach, but admits one or two one-day games ended in puzzling circumstances.

As to his own career regrets, he says being dropped shortly after a triumphant maiden tour of England in 1989 made him a better, more determined player. "You have to see the depths of the valley before you see the peaks," he says.

But had he been more professional in his outlook early on, after being plucked into a rebel-ravaged Australian team in 1985/86, he might have retained his place. `It's one thing I would change if I had my chance again,' he said. "I tended to take it for granted a bit. It came a bit too easy, playing for Australia. It was hard to survive in the early 1990s and that toughened me up for later years. I know I'm a lot more professional and a lot more ready to play for Australia now than when I first played."

Life after cricket will include a long-awaited autobiography, after six tour diaries and a book of photographs. Contracted to Channel 9, like his vice-captain Shane Warne, he also intends to commentate, rejoining his old mates like Ian Healy and Mark Taylor who have made such a successful transition from playing into the media box.

First, though, he is eyeing the new world record and looking forward to an even stronger Australian team with an extra fast bowler, Jason Gillespie, again vying for selection. He says the present Australian XI would be competitive against any other side to have played the game, Bradman's Invincibles included. Brett Lee has added extra firepower and when Gillespie returns to his best, competition for the available fast bowling places will be even keener.

He doubts there will be any fall-off in motivation, even if the world record falls. "The guys respect playing for Australia and are keen to win. They want to keep up the same high standards. We know how well we can play and we don't want to drop below that. It's a matter of personal pride as well. We're trying to build up our own culture and pass it on to young guys. There are always ways you and the team can improve."

Having become in April the first Australian Test team to win 10 matches in a row, Waugh says the players are relaxed and focused, as they showed by winning the last Test in Hamilton, despite being 29 for 5, chasing New Zealand's 232, on the second morning.

"We're really enjoying our cricket right now and doing things which aren't probably the norm," Waugh said. "Things like at Wellington, Colin Miller bowling spin to the left-hander and, in the same over, medium pace to the right-hander. Sure enough he got a wicket - Mathew Sinclair.

"We had nine slips in a one-day game in Zimbabwe (for Damien Fleming at Harare). We weren't taking the mickey out of the opposition. We thought it was the right thing to do. And the crowd loved it. There was no harm done. Maybe we're throwing the text book out of the window a bit, but we're having fun on the field and trying to back ourselves."

Asked about a likely retirement age, he said age is often irrelevant and he believed he could still lead for some time yet, certainly to England for a fourth tour next year and onwards.

"I don't see myself being an age," he says. "I see myself being competitive and really enjoying it. My age has got nothing to do with how I play, or my attitude. Age can be overplayed sometimes. If you still have that fire in the belly and you're good enough you can play until any time you want to. If you lose that competitive edge where you're in a difficult situation and can't fire up, that to me is my time when I'll know I can walk away. At the moment if I walk out to bat at 30 for 3 or 40 for 3, I still get excited about the challenge. It shows that I'm still ready to play cricket at this level."

Asked how many more big innings he is capable of playing after some incredible knocks in the 1999 calendar year, none better than his World Cup 120 against the South Africans at Headingley, he says: "You always hope you can play better. I'd love to score a triple-hundred in Test cricket. It's one of my dreams. I don't know if it's possible batting at five and six. There is always something to aspire to and play that perfect innings.

"Batting there in most of my one-day career, you don't often get a chance to play that sort of innings. I'd swap 10 average one-day hundreds to get a 120 in that sort of situation again."