To many cricket fans both inside and outside of Australia it came as no surprise to hear that the independent review into the ball-tampering issue by the Ethics centre found Cricket Australia “arrogant” and had created a “win-at-all costs” mentality.
It would appear that the unwritten motto inside Cricket Australia was the line purported to have been uttered by Allan Border when he took over the Captaincy and gave Australian cricket back its backbone. Border was understandably sick of being seen as a good bloke and losing, and as the story goes said ‘I’d sooner be a prick and win.’
The truth is Australian sporting teams have been called arrogant for decades. Arrogant because they turn up at tournaments, exude confidence and self belief, and tell everyone that they will win. Then when they do win, many nations begrudgingly wish that their athletes had that same swagger, and that same belief.
Of course not every team takes it to the same extreme. In other countries they too have teams who have a swagger about them, they too have a belief in their ability, but culturally they are more reserved. Their nation’s culture expects them to have humility. Whereas in Australia at least as far back as the 1970’s that brash boastful way became the norm, and was excused as being “the larrikin in every Australian.”
Times have changed and social behaviours that were accepted, even if they were not right four decades ago, are now totally unacceptable.
However as the world changes sport is still about winning. It is about two teams, or individual athletes competing against one another to see who is the best.
As every sports fan knows, in the same four decades sport has become a very big business. A business where success is based on your team’s performance. The more the team wins the more sponsorship dollars you can attract, the better the television deal, the more media coverage you will garner; except possibly in the case of the Australian Hockey team the Kookaburras!
Australian Cricket has consistently been at the top of the pile ever since Allan Border dragged the team up by its bootlaces in the mid eighties.
Unfortunately in that time the structure of the game has changed.
One of the great things about Australian sport around that time was if there was not an international or a Sheffield Shield game of cricket being played the stars of the international arena would be seen playing on parks around the country, for their club sides.
This was excellent for those players coming up, because it meant they played alongside the best players and were able to learn from them. Or it made those with aspirations lift their game when playing against them. It gave them a true barometer as to where they stood in terms of their development and their dreams.
Taking these players away from this arena made them a protected species. On centralised contracts they were guaranteed income and a livelihood. Their form could dip, but they would still be paid. They may lose their place in the side but only to someone else in the centralised program; of course occasionally the selectors did step outside and pick a form player.
What the system created was a “team” that it was harder to be dropped from than to break into. A “team” where not necessarily the form players were being rewarded.
The other situation that the centralised contract system created was that those players selected would play less and less State cricket and next to no club cricket. By playing regularly against the best players in the world it is a given that they as players are going to become more accustomed to that level, and will become more comfortable playing there. Which in turn means that the gulf between the top flight and the next tier becomes greater.
As Malcolm Gladwell highlighted in his book “Outliers” young ice hockey players were selected for elite programs at age 13. The cut off date was the start of the year. Most of the players that went on to play for the national team had their birthdays in the first half of the year. The reason was because at 13, six months is a big gap in a child’s physical growth. Coaches would pick the stronger players, then these same players would receive the best coaching, and when they were successful everyone praised the program. Yet they will never know how good those players born in the second half of the year would have been had they been afforded the same coaching.
The same thing has happened in so many Australian sports. The closed shop at the top has excluded players who deserve to be given a chance. Who may be better than those already there. Socceroo Tom Rogic is a prime example, not selected in development squads and only discovered thanks to Nike’s “The Chance,” where he beat players from around the globe to be a part of the Nike academy.
The players in this closed group obviously want to protect their patch, and that is why that “winning at all costs” mentality has arisen. They need to win to protect their income, their contracts, the sponsorship deals and the life they are living.
No one wants to leave that exalted group and understandably so. Over ten years ago when a certain Test Cricketer in their mid 30’s, and was struggling for form the media started suggesting that they should step aside. The player responded with a comment along the lines of ‘I will decide when I step aside.’ That can never be a healthy situation.
As a player you decide when you wish to retire if still playing at the top, or if you wish to keep going you run the risk of being dropped and then having to announce your retirement from outside the team. No one is irreplaceable.
This was where the Football Federation of Australia showed a lack of leadership, by recalling Tim Cahill after he had announced his retirement from International football. It was packaged as a chance to farewell the fans, but it was a marketing ploy to pull in fans to an unattractive fixture. Cahill did his reputation no favours by agreeing to play, rather than accepting an appearance in an open topped car. Cahill was a great goalscorer, but he relied on his team mates to win the ball, and to pass it for him to score. No one player should be put ahead of the team. (The Lingering Farewell).
The sad thing once retirements have been announced is how few of the top players opt to continue playing. Sure, some will now sign up for a lucrative spell in T20, but how many go back to where it all started, and play club cricket again?
England Rugby Captain Martin Johnson retired from International Rugby but stated at the time his intention to keep playing for his club. When asked why? He answered “because I simply love playing rugby.”
Is that not why everyone plays sport? Even if it is your profession, should it not be enjoyable?
Maybe that was the underlying problem within the Australian cricket team, that it was no longer fun, that the players were no longer enjoying it. They had simply become automatons. That they had lost that feeling because it had been indoctrinated into them that winning was the be all and end all. Winning would keep them on a centralised contract, that winning would keep the television money and sponsorship money flowing. That winning would guarantee them the life they were told they were enjoying. Lose, and it could all disappear.
Maybe had the International players played more State cricket, or even turned out for their club sides more they would have rediscovered what it was like to enjoy the game. Maybe that is the secret to the Kookaburras success. They have been ranked in the top four teams in the world for the past 40 years, they remain grounded and all still take playing for their club sides seriously.However they still know how to win on the international stage and with humility.
Maybe the simple solution is to return to those days. Maybe we need to return to those days where we saw Test players playing for their state teams but more importantly also playing club cricket again?
