“I thought I was in Bali, I’d been kidnapped, drugged and people had stolen all my stuff because I couldn’t find anything,” says Ryan Campbell. In reality, the former Australia wicketkeeper was in a Stoke hospital and awake after a week spent in a coma.
On a family visit to England last April, Campbell had been playing with his two young children in a Cheshire playground when he suffered a cardiac arrest. Another parent present came to his aid before Campbell was treated at Royal Stoke University Hospital. For the recently turned 50-year-old, the events formed part of a “seven-day window of nothing”, his memory only going as far as getting on the flight he took from Schiphol airport to arrive in the country. His friends and family can remember, and it’s their experiences he reflects on.
“It’s horrific what they had to endure,” says Campbell. “I’ve read articles where my wife and a great friend of mine, Simon Millington, spoke about their time sitting by my bed and what they went through. That’s the moments where you go: ‘Jeez, I’m a lucky man.’” A near-death experience still offers space for a light touch. “I can’t confess that I’m a religious man, but I kind of thought someone was looking over my shoulder at some point. He obviously didn’t want to catch up with me upstairs because I never saw any lights or any white tunnels.”
Fortunately, even through a Zoom screen, Campbell is looking in good nick: healthy, smiling and happy to squeeze in a chat between all the other tasks that occupy him as Durham’s new head coach. It’s another country ticked off in a career that’s moved through multiple continents.
A swashbuckling keeper-batter for Western Australia at the turn of the century, Campbell won two Sheffield Shield titles and a couple of ODI caps too. He only caught the early days of T20 cricket but was playing the scoop shot in the one-day game long before it became a modern staple. “Back in those days the game was very simple. At the death, you needed to bowl yorkers. You would have fine-leg up, mid-on, mid-off back. I’m thinking, I know where everything’s going, surely if I get down and get it on the full, I can just nip it over my shoulder and it’s away.
“That was the theory behind it, of course I needed the courage to do it in a game. It’s a bit of a joke now but [Victoria’s] Darren Berry was the wicketkeeper, up to the stumps. And I thought: ‘Right, I don’t like you very much.’ I joke with Darren nowadays about it, but I tried to pretty much hit him in the face but kept missing him and it kept going for four. I thought to myself: ‘Gee, I’m on to something here.’”
Coaching would take Campbell to Hong Kong where he made an unlikely return to international cricket in his forties, playing for his adopted home at the 2016 World T20. He then went on to coach the Netherlands, eventually signing off as a consultant at last year’s men’s T20 World Cup, his final act including an upset over South Africa. “I know in sport you’re not supposed to have fairytale finishes, but that was totally it.”
And now to Durham, where Campbell’s job is to lift a side that finished third-bottom in Division Two last year and had a torrid time with the white ball. Yet there’s still some decent pedigree in these parts. “My first week in, I’m walking in and suddenly I’m throwing balls to Ben Stokes and that just takes you to another level. As Aussies, it’s drummed into us from the start on how to beat England. But we also have drummed into us a great respect for the county game.”
Having already worked with England’s Test captain, will he try to replicate the national side’s new approach? “I’m not here to replicate anything, because they’re on a different level. They’ve taken it to a whole different way of playing. The one thing I will say – I don’t want to sound like I’m jumping on anyone’s wagon – but that was the way I was taught to play the game. Rod Marsh was my academy coach and the first thing he said to me was: ‘You as a batter have to be an entertainer, and your job is to give the bowlers enough time to take 20 wickets to win a game of cricket. So hurry up and get on with it.’
“England have got two very positive people in charge in Ben and [Brendon] McCullum, and it’s exciting to see what they’re going to do with it. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen in the Ashes. For the first time in a long time, I don’t think I can pick a winner. And I think that’s where it’s exciting, because Australian cricket are going to sit there and say: ‘They can’t do that to our bowlers.’ England’s going to sit there and go: ‘Oh, yes, we can. We’re going to go and we’re going to meet them head-on.’”
While he won’t copy Stokes’s homework, Campbell’s view on how he wants his side to play does sound familiar. “Don’t have any fear and go for it. We’ve got nothing to lose, we’re here to win games of cricket, not just to draw and not just to survive.”
It’s a style that sees things as they are; that this is all a game. That’s not to say it doesn’t matter, particularly after what Campbell experienced last year. “One thing that’s become very clear to me after what I’ve been through is, I love this game. I love everything about it.
“If you’re a part of it, you should enjoy it. It’s going to be tough. It’s going to break your heart sometimes, but I think we need to enjoy it for what it is. It’s a wonderful game to be a part of.”
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