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With The Ashes lost, cricket fans en masse have turned their attention to finding fault and identifying the reasons for our failure. Unfortunately the same noises are not as forthcoming from within the team.
When looked at with the comments after the wonderful WACA win, this lack of attention gives us a clue to a core problem facing the Australian cricket team: too great a focus on the sizzle at the expense of their steak.
There was a sigh of relief amongst cricket fans after the great Perth victory as ‘normal service was resumed’ and in the wash up from the game, the team and its leader were bullish about their chances in Melbourne.
At this point alarm bells should have been ringing as Ricky Ponting spoke enthusiastically about the return to the more aggressive style of play which had become such a hallmark of the Australian team.
His comments were concerning because being a great sledger does not make you great at cricket. While there have certainly been a large number of great cricketers who have been great sledgers, there have also been a lot of equally great cricketers who have not.
The comments of the Australian captain suggest that he has mistaken an instance of correlation with causality, a common mistake.
Correlation is when you get passed by the same bus every day as you walk to work. The two occurrences, you walking to work and the bus going by are happening independent of each other. Indeed, if you drove to work instead, the bus would still being going past at the same time and visa versa.
Causality on the other hand is when the bus stops every time you stand at the bus stop. If you (or someone else of course) weren’t standing there the bus wouldn’t stop, you caused a change.
Sledging the opposition is something the great Australian teams of the past forty years have done with some gusto. It has become such a celebrated part of the game that there are regular articles written about great moments in slagging off and the commentators (certainly the Nine crew) are happy to talk like it is a normal part of every game.
However, it didn’t win us games of cricket. Shane Warne took 700 wickets because he was a brilliant spin bowler, not a complete smart alec. When Herschelle Gibbs “Dropped the World Cup” we still needed to score a heap of runs and then bowl and field like demons to actually win the game.
Ricky Ponting seems to believe that this is not the case, and that the more energetic sledging in Perth actually helped us win the game. This has the same logic as noting that since Bradman scored a bucket load of runs without wearing a helmet, all the current players should bat in baggy greens as well.
Correlation, not cause and effect. Bradman’s runs were scored regardless of his headwear status, they weren’t caused by his lack of skid lid.
This is unfortunate since this Australian Cricket Team is a fabulous team of sportsmen. Watch them run out on the field together, all of them in peak physical condition, looking smart and uniform in their baggy greens. They yell constant support to each other and rush in with delight every time a wicket is taken.
Off the field they are always patting each other on the back, throwing a football or frisbee around and of course, talking each other and themselves up. But none of these things will help you get a wicket though, or let you protect yours when you need to bad for nine sessions to save a test match.
The uncomfortable truth for the Australian Cricket Team is that all that stuff is far less important then being good at cricket. And the players on the English Cricket Team are much better at playing cricket then them. If they want to be better, its not coming about through better sledging, more time in the gym, baggier green, team unity, any of these things.
It will come about through practicing cricket… a lot. Hundreds of hours in the nets, thousands of balls both bowled and faced. Jonathon Trott spoke after his near run out at Melbourne that he practiced diving to make his ground. How Phillip Hughes must have wished he had spent a little more time doing that, and maybe a little less throwing the footy around becoming a better team player.
Cricket at its heart is a game for individuals, unlike football where a team mate can often dive in when you miss a tackle. When a cut shot is flying at your head it is you and you alone that can make the play.
Similarly, when a great delivery is bowled, a wicket ball, there is only one player that can protect the stumps. The Australian cricket team seems preoccupied with appearances, the look and feel that typified the champion teams we remember so fondly.
I hope they soon realise those teams were full of blokes only there because they were the brilliant at cricket.
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