interview with The Age\u2019s Daniel Brettig<\/a>, the 31-year-old revealed some of the hurdles he has faced in his bid to become the country\u2019s next Test opener, as well as the moment he was told of his recent selection.<\/p>\n\u201cIn sport there\u2019s so much failure and so many opinions about what goes on and so many things you can\u2019t control. I was completely consumed by that, and when you go through certain things \u2013 I have OCD, and I was obsessed with getting better,\u201d Weatherald said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I was obsessed with everyone else as well, what everyone else thought. And when you\u2019re already negatively geared, it just didn\u2019t make a great concoction for trying to be a professional athlete and trying to enjoy yourself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t the best human going around (in 2020), I didn\u2019t feel that happy about myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weatherald reacts to Ashes selection | 03:45<\/p>\n
The positive left-hander noted that even the most simple pleasures like sharing a glass of wine or two at home were simply not the same during his struggles, a concern noticed by his now-wife Rachel. <\/p>\n
Weatherald withdrew himself from the first-class scene amid Covid in the summer of 2020\/21, before taking a second leave of absence in 2022 which eventually saw him relocate from South Australia to Tasmania. <\/p>\n
Three years on, and the Northern Territory-born product is within touching distance of the coveted Baggy Green, as confirmed to him via Chairman of Selectors George Bailey over the phone on Wednesday morning<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to play it as cool as possible but I was absolutely screaming in my head,\u201d Weatherald revealed. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut he said \u2018we like the way you go about it, your record suggests you\u2019re going really well, everything\u2019s moving well, we feel as though you can put pressure on the bowlers and we like that, we don\u2019t want you to do anything different, just be ready to go\u2019. He was clear they trust I have the game to hopefully perform.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sh** yourself a little bit. I\u2019ve aspired so long to even be considered for Australia, and it\u2019s one of those things where you never think it\u2019s going to happen; it\u2019s a pipedream. So, then to be announced you\u2019re part of the squad and have players like Steve Smith, Travis and \u2018Kez\u2019 [Carey], joining up with them will be an amazing moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weatherald has scored 248 runs from three Sheffield Shield matches this spring, with three half-centuries at an average of 41.33.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A raw and transparent Jake Weatherald has opened up on his decade-long journey to Australia\u2019s Test circle just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[1724,64,63,689,60158,740,156199,156200,2105,2485,12804,156202,1209,44226,8867,677,151826,156201,130543,701,97556,156198,97426,1124,12540,85,20960,60133,18784,2801],"class_list":{"0":"post-267836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","12":"tag-baggy-green","13":"tag-cricket","14":"tag-decade-long-journey","15":"tag-domestic-career","16":"tag-getty-images-inc","17":"tag-gold-coast","18":"tag-hobart","19":"tag-in-depth-interview","20":"tag-india","21":"tag-jake-weatherald","22":"tag-northern-territory","23":"tag-oceania","24":"tag-personal-struggles","25":"tag-positive-left-hander","26":"tag-professional-athlete","27":"tag-queensland","28":"tag-rachel","29":"tag-raw-road","30":"tag-rollercoaster-ride","31":"tag-south-australia","32":"tag-southern-asia","33":"tag-sports","34":"tag-squad-member","35":"tag-steve-bell","36":"tag-steven-smith","37":"tag-tasmania"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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