Test Cricket is a game steeped in history, yet many cricket fans have very short memories. Australia’s thrashing at the hands of India in Perth has set talk radio and social media alight with demands for axings, and blame directed at various parties.
Many of these armchair experts have an axe to grind with Pat Cummins, and any loss is an opportunity to claim that their criticisms are vindicated. Yet they were strangely silent when Pat’s teams were winning titles. Some of the anti-Pat animosity is a result of the misguided perception that he and other players led a revolt to dethrone then coach Justin Langer. The two characters in this imagined dispute represent archetypes that cross over into modern social divisions.
JL is the pugnacious, old style Aussie bloke – the kind that many a boomer on the internet believes is a threatened species. Pat is cast as the villain – a progressive, inner-suburban, sensitive type who believes in climate change and is inclined to talk about his feelings.
Pat’s critics deploy that most mundane of modern pejoratives by labelling him ‘woke’. Like its predecessor ‘political correctness’, ‘wokeness’ is merely a catch-all phrase to describe anything new that the speaker is uncomfortable with. Standards of behaviour and acceptable conduct are forever changing, and as we get older we sometimes find it difficult, or even confronting to adapt. It’s very convenient to have a term that diverts the blame for this away from ourselves and onto that change instead.
Of course this characterisation of Pat, JL, and the others involved is ludicrously simplistic and inaccurate. But it also fits neatly into Australian cricket mythology – a mythology that tells us that Australian Teams of the past were successful because they sledged opponents, drank beer, and loved the baggy green. They may well have done all three of those things, but anyone who has played any kind of competitive sport understands that this is not what determines the success of a team.
Cummins and coach Andrew McDonald both share a very calm, measured demeanour. They always seem relaxed and comfortable in their own skin. Instead of fire and brimstone statements about the pride of representing the baggy green, they talk of executing skills, and putting themselves into a position to succeed. At times this can come across as dispassionate, or even casual. It is not. It is part of a broader trend across professional sports to move to a more empirical approach, and away from mythology. A lot is made of how modern AFL coaches allow their players to express themselves, and the same is happening in cricket.
Some might mistake this for softness, or mollycoddling, but it is anything but. Professional sports teams are run by hardheaded people with a scientific approach to winning. They know what it takes to succeed, and collectively they have come to realise that methods such as shouting at players and using training as punishment simply do not work. As a result, those methods have largely been abandoned. Similarly, they have realised that allowing players to be themselves does not detract from performance. In his interview on The Howie Games Podcast, Collingwood coach Craig McRae explained this, and juxtaposed it against the crude coaching methods of his playing days.
None of this has penetrated the world of the angry talk radio caller who desperately needs a target for their fury. They feel betrayed because their cricket team lost, and the obvious explanation is that the modern team is weaker and softer than the teams of their nostalgic past.
It is true that a number of the Australian players are out of form. Labuschagne looks like a man who is preoccupied with trying not to get out – a thought process that can only lead to one inevitable conclusion. Smith is badly out of form, and with each passing failure it seems less and less likely that he will ever recapture it. And as many have pointed out, there is an inexplicable lack of batting depth at Shield level from which to draw replacements.
By contrast, India appear to have endless batting resources at their disposal. SENA nations have long feared that India will inevitably come to dominate cricket on the field, in the same way they do off it. After all, they have many, many more cricketers than any other nation, so it stands to reason that they will have vastly more talented teams. And yet only a few weeks ago they were defeated 3-0 at home in a test series against New Zealand – a nation with a comparatively tiny population. India appeared almost invincible in Perth, but appearances can be fleeting.
And so on to Adelaide, where Australia will feel they have a better chance with a day/night fixture. The post match comments from the Australian camp seemed to suggest they are not looking at selection changes. It will be intriguing to see how they respond.
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