00:00When I got told I was coming up here to play for Australia Rae, to be here and play in
00:08front of some locals and obviously my fan members and people I've grown up with, it's
00:12a pretty cool experience for me.
00:15My name's Jake Wetherald, I'm a professional cricketer.
00:17I was born in Darwin.
00:18It was awesome growing up here, I loved being a Territorian, obviously being a kid, you
00:22get into your fishing.
00:23I wasn't as good as all the boys playing footy, I wasn't tall enough to play tennis
00:26so I sort of went to cricket.
00:28My dad would always go outside and throw balls to me and stuff like that, but I was
00:32sort of ten when I took up cricket for the first time, one of my best mates took me under
00:36his wing and his dad was the coach at the time and said come out and try out.
00:39So I went to Darwin Cricket Club, I was super supportive, built a really good culture there,
00:43junior cricket in the morning, senior cricket in the afternoon, sort of fast-tracked me from
00:46a learning point of view.
00:47So coming back to my local home club at Darwin was pretty cool, not just to play cricket
00:52but also just to see everyone that I haven't seen in a long time.
00:56When I was probably 13, 14 I had a dream of playing cricket as high as I could.
00:59Obviously the unfortunate truth of being in the Territory is you don't get the opportunity
01:02to play for the Territory so I had to find a way of getting into a state system and figuring
01:06out a way of obviously playing for Australia and that's the best way to do that is to
01:09go down south.
01:10So my mum was big on providing that for me.
01:12It's been a lot of wobbles.
01:14I think the first one I had when I was younger, I'd sort of just finished school, I wasn't,
01:19I would say, not a very professional person.
01:22My mum sort of pulled me aside and said you sort of need to sort yourself out.
01:24If you want to become a professional cricket at times, sort of come into a bit of a crunch
01:27here.
01:28So I was lucky there was a guy called Tony Judd up here that sort of said if you want
01:31to come train full time with me, you can come play for Tracy Village.
01:35I work with you every day, I sort of came and made a commitment to come up here every day,
01:39train in these nets here.
01:40Spent every day here, training nonstop, worked on with Sykes, strength conditioning, did everything
01:45I possibly could and it sort of just moulded me into the cricket I became really from there.
01:50That opportunity for me was probably, that was a big defining moment in my life and so
01:53I owe a lot to Tony Judd and my mum at that time who was super supportive.
01:57And then I ended up playing first class cricket when I was 21 so I was very lucky that the Darwin
02:02provided me a good opportunity to train when I wasn't down south and I was able to come back
02:05up here, train and play when the other season was off.
02:08I've got so many great facilities up here and the coaches are amazing.
02:12So thankfully now that I'm 30 I feel like my game's in a point of, and my mindset's in
02:16a place where I feel as I can be the best version of myself and whether that takes me to the
02:20top of the test cricket or it means I've, you know, this is the highest I get to.
02:24You just got to aspire to be the best you can be and everything else sort of takes care of itself.
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