The Australian cricket team will get belted this summer, but they’re sure to shake hands afterwards.
Rightly or wrongly, I’m told there was a problem with our team culture. That it was ‘inconsistent’ with our national identity and ‘didn’t reflect our common values’. We needed a paradigm shift. A realignment, if you will. But was this for real, or have we simply found another theatre for our national culture wars? The battle between our aspirations versus reality?
Wait, before we jump in, let me rewind a little. What do we mean by these nebulous terms – our ‘values’ and our ‘culture’? Our culture is, by definition, a literal melange of our customs, beliefs and social norms. And, from what I can tell, we like to project ourselves as your laid-back everyman. We’re irreverent. A knockabout bloke of a country – laconic and dry and with a disdain for authority. We’re an underdog, we’ll claim; a nation built on hard work and a fair go. Righto. Let’s take a closer look…
Firstly, are we really that laid-back and irreverent? Granted, we’re no Sweden or Canada, but political correctness has been full steam ahead, only outstripped by our willingness to find offence. Has anyone else been on social media lately, or on The Roar for that matter? And what even is a safe space? We’re a pack of precious petals seeking shade from the sun.
But we’re an underdog, yeah? So we like a good scrap? Um, no. As a nation we’ve had the highest median wealth in the world for five consecutive years now. That sure doesn’t sound like disadvantage. Hands up if you’ve ever been to India or the Caribbean – now there’s a good scrap. Pakistan can’t even pay its players.
Okay, how about a fair go? Sitting in the top ten for wealth inequality, this one becomes a tough sell. Has anyone else been tracking the plight of those poor entitled sociopaths at the banking royal commission? Cheating is endemic. Exploitation is the norm.
Right. So what is this ‘Australian culture’ thing anyway? It turns out we’re a bit mouthy and a bit highly strung. From a position of great advantage we might all take ourselves too seriously. And to hell with the rules, we’ll take any advantage we can get.
If this is the case, then what was the problem with our team culture? Seems pretty consistent to me.
AndyS
Guest
Agreed. I think "laid back" morphed into "apathetic and compliant" sometime in the 1950's. My grandparents migrated in the early 60's, and my grandfather often expressed amazement at the glaring disparity between the Australian society he saw and the men he fought with in the war.
peeeko
Roar Guru
you are joking?
Evanfinity
Roar Pro
Thanks for the feedback. My point is that the behaviour of the Australian team was entirely consistent with our national culture and values. To hold them to higher account than any of other cultural reference points - be they national sporting teams, personalities, institutions, or otherwise - is unfounded. Our hubris and fake outrage at the ball tampering incident speaks more to our misplaced self image than to anything else. The culture within our cricket team was a microcosm for our wider national identity. Like it or loathe it.
Paul
Roar Guru
I too read this piece more than once and struggled to see where you're coming from. You've managed to complicate something that's really quite simple. Australian CRICKET culture is about "work hard, play hard and have a few beers afterwards". In other words, give it everything you've got but shake hands with the opposition once the day's play is over and enjoy each other's company. Over the past 10 years, we've continued to work hard, but have taken the "play hard" to a whole different level with our ignorance and aggression, culminating in the SA incident. We're hated world wide for these over-the-top tactics and we need to reset, so we can still play hard but fair and enjoy the game as a hard fought contest, not a battle of who can abuse the opposition the best. As for your comment about the team getting flogged, that might happen ( but I don't think it will), nevertheless, if we lose to the best team in Test cricket and we've played to best of our ability, I mark that down as a victory for Australian cricket, because there's no shame in losing if we've done our best. We simply have to find better players.
keith hurst
Roar Pro
I read your article 3 times and still don’t get your point. Culture is defined as social behaviour in a society. If most people think that a group’s behaviour is not satisfactory they blame it’s culture. The Longstaff report thought that Cricket Australia and their cricket teams behaved in a fashion that was reprehensible and not in accordance with society’s expectations. You may or may not agree but something is wrong and we are losing. Shock, horror. You can’t change “culture” by selecting a different team or firing the CEO or shaking hands. It takes time. Keith Hurst sports fanatic
Ad-O
Guest
Good stuff. Someone had to say it. For a nation that likes to think of itself as "laidback" yet operates the most draconian nanny state in the western world, our greatest national "value" must surely be self-delusion. Exhibit 1 being the ridiculous outrage when we found out that professional cricketers bend the rules from time to time. You couldn't make it up.
Beni Iniesta
Guest
Eh? We are battlers. There is no country in the world that has as many hurdles to overcome as Australia has.
Ouch
Roar Rookie
“A real country of battlers against the odds us Aussies!” No. We are not or at least haven’t been since WW2. This is a tired, old narrative. We are one of the richest countries in the world with positive outcomes in health, way of life, economically, life expectancy etc. There is no civil war, a useless but (at least) democratically elected government, law and order - a confortable, stable life for the most part. We literally have everything in our favour. We are not battlers at all. World class wingers though.
Beni Iniesta
Guest
Not sure what you're getting at exactly but a little country like Australia faces tremendous barriers to be taken seriously overseas and in international fora. The fact is we're a minnow adrift in a giant global sea that most people in the world wouldn't even have heard of! It's amazing Australia achievers anything at all on the international stage when you consider the huge barriers we face compared to the bigger countries around the world. A real country of battlers against the odds us Aussies!