Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

Charlesworth left India in June 2008 with no certainty about his immediate future. But on this occasion the timing was right. In October 2008 he greeted his appointment as coach of the Australian men’s hockey team, the Kookaburras, with some relief: I was asked if I wanted to do the job in 2000, but I needed a break from coaching. I was thinking that in 2004 I would go back but the job wasn’t available then. I’ve been watching the team’s performance in recent times but I was doing other things and the opportunity wasn’t there. Perth was both home for his family and home base for the Kookaburras. With his long-standing friend, David Hatt, as team manager, he could look forward to nearly four years of intense international hockey competition towards his ultimate goal, a gold medal at the London Olympics in 2012. 90 2002-2009