'This is it, or it's over': Wade's life on the edge

Matthew Wade has a problem.

It's not that he's in bad nick. In fact, Wade might be Australia's most in-form player heading into their World Cup title defence, having averaged 78.75 and held a strike-rate of 158.29 in 18 T20s since his match-winning semi-final hand against Pakistan last year.

It has nothing to do with his life away from cricket either. He is happily settled with his family – wife Julia and young daughters Goldie and Winter – who have accompanied him on his various jaunts around the world with Australia and his T20 franchises in recent months.

It's not even that these coming weeks might mark the last games of a never-settled international career which has required almost constant reinvention.

Wade is uneasy because … well, things are going OK.

"For some reason, over my whole career, when my back's been up against a wall, I can draw my best performances out," the 34-year-old told the Unplayable Podcast.

"You're one game away from potentially not playing ever again, or you're a chance to get dropped – for some reason, when I'm in that scenario, it just clears my mind more than other moments. 

"When it's right there in front of you, it just narrows the focus.

"It's like, 'Well, this is it, or it's over'."

So, what does an athlete who thrives on impending doom do when the walls are not closing in?

"Over the last 12 months, that's been something that I've had to deal with – people actually saying one or two nice words about me, which hasn't happened all that much in my career," Wade said.

"I'm working my way through that, to be honest, trying to find a way to still put those performances in when things (are going well).

"I don't want to be close to (being) dropped every time I play."

Wade's best may come when he's on the edge, but that isn't to say he hasn't fallen off it from time to time.

From almost the first day of his international career, the wicketkeeper has been looking over his shoulder.

He won his first Test cap in April 2012 in the Caribbean and despite scoring two centuries in his first nine Tests and temporarily winning out over Brad Haddin in both Tests and ODIs, a sense he was only filling his predecessor’s shoes proved self-fulfilling, setting off a chain of crushing setbacks.

Haddin dislodged Wade in time for the 2013 Ashes in Tests, and then the 2015 World Cup in ODIs, and while the latter returned to take the Test gloves again in 2016, two eleventh-hour axings before other flagship series reinforced the notion that his career seemed to be always on the brink.

The first came before the 2016 World T20 when Wade's keeping was deemed to be substandard, with Peter Nevill instead plucked from nowhere to play instead.

The second came when selectors recalled his childhood friend Tim Paine for the 2017-18 Ashes despite Wade, at that time, being preferred over Paine as Tasmania's first-choice keeper.

That Wade's international career did not end there is remarkable.

The left-hander barged his way back into the Test side in 2019 on the weight of a 1,021-run Sheffield Shield campaign, and finished that year's Ashes tour as Australia's best batter not named Steve Smith.

Now, despite a gaggle of younger wicketkeepers including Test and ODI gloveman Alex Carey, T20 dynamo Josh Inglis, and BBL stars Josh Philippe and Ben McDermott all nipping at his heels, Wade's latest transformation has brought him to another World Cup.

His late-career blossoming into a lower-order T20 role Australia had struggled to fill (and indeed which Wade was deemed not up to back in 2016) helped deliver the men's team their first crown in the format in the UAE last year.

His match-winning stand with Marcus Stoinis (40no off 31), capped by Wade (41no off 17) hitting three consecutive sixes off Shaheen Afridi in a rousing semi-final comeback victory over Pakistan, rivalled Mike Hussey’s legendary World T20 semi-final exploits from 11 years earlier against the same opponent as the ultimate backs-against-the-wall performance by Australians in the shortest format.

Defending their title at home as the only left-hander in a middle-order now minus its only nurdler in Steve Smith from last year's title-winning team, Wade is a crucial counterpoint to the all-out power of Mitch Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis and Tim David.

And the experience of playing more than 200 international games with his place seldom secure has bled into how he, and the rest of that batting line-up, have shaped their strategy.

"I think it's really important to take yourself out of the picture," Wade said.

"I think if anyone walks in to T20s, especially at the international level, and is worried about their own individual performance – or you're trying to get to 10 before you take a risk, little things that do slip into players' minds at times – you're in real trouble.

"We need to be a team that's willing to go out and (have) maximum impact as a group.

"We made a conscious effort (during last year's World Cup) of making sure we rewarded guys that did that.

"Guys that would walk out and put the foot down straightaway for the team and take themselves out of it is something that we value highly in this group and something that has certainly helped us work towards being the team that we want it to be."

So in the context of his career, Wade's current problem is not a bad one to have. 

His T20 feats won him berths at the Indian Premier League, helping Gujarat Titans to a final appearance in their first season earlier this year, before he continued a fulfilling period abroad in the Hundred with Birmingham Phoenix.

A career as in-demand franchise player may beckon, while he remains a valued member of Tasmania's Sheffield Shield side.

And while this T20 World Cup may well be his international swansong, Wade has not shut the door completely.

"I'm no closer to the end than I was 12 months ago but for some reason, last (World Cup), I thought I'd never play another ICC event," Wade said. "And now I'm here again and I'm playing.

"So I'm kind of like, 'Well, if this is it, this is it. If it's not, it's not'.

"I've spoken that it could be my last tournament – It may be, it may not be – I don't know. I just go in (thinking) every game is a bonus.

"If they feel like there's a role for me to play, I'll play it. If 'Ingo' (Inglis, Wade's back-up for this World Cup) is the next man and they want to get him game time, then I'm more than happy to walk away as well.

"I don't want to really be holding people up."