The shattered AFL dreams led Alex Carey to the new path of the Australian national cricket team.

Since a young age, Carey played midfielder as well as a left-handed batsman in junior cricket- a potential candidate in junior representative teams for both sports.

At 15, he tied up the laces of boots and mixed himself in the hoards of grown men in Glenelg’s reserves SANFL side. One of his mates, Andy Shearer didn’t recognize him until he read Alex was a member of a reserve team on the newspaper. As per Andy, he stood out among others for being a peculiar player to order a sandwich instead of burger and chips and escape a night out to attend the training or practice session the next morning.

Andy cites:

“It wasn’t that he didn’t like going out or socialising, he was just super disciplined,”

“He knew what he wanted to do and what was required to get there. That was it.”

No pain no gain- the ‘2008 AFL under 18 Championships’ included Alex in South Australia’s squad. The same year, he got into the AIS/AFL Academy intake and then the 2009 AFL under 18 Championships, simultaneously. Soon, he was on the radar of Greater Western Sydney, where he bagged the team’s best and fairest award. Howbeit, he was overlooked from the privileges of AFL and didn’t grab the contract by the end of 2011.

Alex Was Left Shattered

Eventually, Alex was left shattered as he rejected on a Redbacks rookie contract and out-turned everything he could for the Greater Western Sydney.

Alex’s older brother Adam revealed his broken AFL dreams:

“He was shattered,”

“He’d spent two years away from home after passing on a Redbacks rookie contract the year before he left and he’d thought he’d done everything he could have to earn a spot on the Giants list.

“That was the hardest part for him I think, knowing that he’d given it his absolute best shot and believing he was good enough, but being told he wasn’t.”

Alex decided for another shot with football, but then-SACA high-performance manager, Jamie Cox, altered his track on cricket. Eventually, he moved on from football heartache and instilled resilience upon the Glenelg Cricket Club for the 2012–13 season. Despite going fifty-fifty for finance job and training session, Alex was punctual ‘in the nets hitting balls’ that got him to List A debut for South Australia in the Ryobi Cup.

But the success didn’t follow him overnight

After the debut, Alex went through a heap of failures including an insufficient 10.1 runs from his first six innings at first-class level. Still, he didn’t lose his patience, leaving out his downhearted 2013/14 season. After all, he is a natural athlete who built a knack in his glovework that turned him into a wicket-keeper.

In the long run, Alex proved adaptability throughout his career from AFL player to batsmen to a wicket-keeper who recorded 375 runs during the 2019 World Cup at an average of 62.50. He secured the fourth spot as the highest run-scorer during the World Cup, joining the troops of Steve Smith, Aaron Finch, and David Warner. No doubt, he will raise the bars for the Delhi Capitals in UAE on September 19.

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