Pucovski and Harper: From sore heads to soaring heights
Will Pucovski and Sam Harper woke up in Adelaide nursing sore heads. But it wasn’t for reasons you might readily associate with teenagers away from home.
In the space of two days, the best mates had both been concussed while playing in the Australian under 19 cricket championships.
Their dads Jan Pucovski and Bryan Harper had travelled to the South Australian capital to watch their boys play. Jan and Bryan had played together for Caulfield, so from not long after they could walk their sons became friends.
Will and Sam rose through Victoria’s junior cricket ranks together, and right now both are flying. Will is on the cusp of a Test debut at just 20, while 22-year-old Sam has been a revelation in the Melbourne Renegades’ top order during the Big Bash League season.
Yet while the Melbourne Cricket Club pair’s rise might seem meteoric at face value, their respective journeys have been far from straightforward.
It is well documented that Pucovski has suffered seven concussions, as well as enduring a recent mental health battle which kept him away from the game.
Gloveman Harper has also been concussed on multiple occasions, most notably in a Sheffield Shield match against South Australia in 2017, an episode which saw him in an Adelaide hospital for three weeks.
Our dads flew over together ... I got concussed that day and Will got concussed the next day.
Sam Harper
So intertwined have their journeys been, there is an element of gallows humour in the fact they had to deal with concussion simultaneously, and in close quarters, at the underage championships three summers ago.
“Our dads flew over together. The day they flew over, I got concussed that day and Will got concussed the next day,” Harper recalls.
“The two of them flew over, they had accommodation booked together for 10 days, their two sons were both concussed.
“We were rooming together, and we would wake up each morning, both in pain and try to comfort each other.
“We’ve certainly had a rocky road [up to] our young 20s.”
They have been there for each other in the tough times, but for the most part Harper and Pucovski's relationship is light-hearted.
It was evident early in the BBL when Pucovski tweeted that Harper was “one of the Milo kids”, a reference to Harper’s size, or lack thereof.
But Pucovski is serious about his cricket, and Harper is confident his friend will succeed in the Test arena.
“I think he’ll handle it really well. He’s quite relaxed, cheeky, but when he puts the helmet on he just goes into this zone,” Pucovski said.
“His patience and calmness, and just ability to stick to his methods for literally hours.
“He could get a good ball tomorrow and he’ll bat the exact same way in the second innings and he’ll bat the exact same way next week, next month and next year. He just trusts his game so much. It’s just hard to see him not being able to have success for a long period of time.”
Harper is enjoying his own rise too, and the chance to potentially play in the BBL finals for the Renegades would help ease the disappointment of missing a winning Shield final following the 2017 incident in Adelaide.
“It’s been great to be able to get an opportunity,” Harper said.
“I’ve loved it. [Coach] Andrew McDonald’s been brilliant.”