We’re told the ‘win-at-all-costs’ era of Australian cricket is over but old habits die hard, writes Wisden Cricket Monthly columnist Jonathan Liew.
This article originally appeared in issue 13 of Wisden Cricket Monthly. Click here to subscribe to the magazine
This article was written before the findings of the independent organisational review were released on Monday October 29.
There’s a story from Steve Waugh’s last Test innings for Australia, against India at the SCG in 2004. Match and series are both petering out into a draw, and so all eyes are on Waugh, who is roared to the wicket by an emotional Sydney crowd. It’s a poignant moment. As he takes guard, the young Indian wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel pipes up: “One more of those famous slog-sweeps before you finish?”
It’s not even, strictly speaking, a sledge. There’s more malice in a burp. And yet even in his very final innings, with the game dead, with the goodwill and benedictions of a stadium warming his ears, Waugh simply couldn’t quieten the vindictive angels of his nature. “Shut up and show some respect,” he growls at Parthiv. “You were running around in nappies when I started out.”
One of the biggest fallacies in sport is to see it as an analogue for character. We kid ourselves that the same trait that makes a champion athlete – courage, pride, resilience, confidence – are the same traits that make you a good person, when in fact a person’s ability to score a century says very little about anything except their ability to score a century. And at some point, perhaps very soon, Australia may discover that the only identity they ever really possessed or aspired to was winning.
