Michael, your comments are Un-Australian!

Haha - management speak does suck.

I always got bored when Vaughan / Flintoff in press conferences at the receiving end of Ashes defeats would say, "the team had a lot of character".

It's management crap, it is like saying that by having 'personality,' it makes you hit fours or take wickets.

The "winning culture" is what helped us win alot of games that we had no business winning. It was our confidence. We had won so many matches that we believed we could win anything from any situation and never gave up. You can just tell that the current team does not feel it. Its not a myth, its confidence and belief that you can win from any situation. At the moment I would wager that England would be feeling similar.

A dodgy premise for a lazy article Michael. Maybe if you actually read the report you will understand its necessity. Of course winning and losing comes in cycles and it is arrogant to assume that one nation or another "should" be no.1 just because they wish it to be so. But Australian cricket needs a shake-up, it has become stagnant after its glory days and financial outcomes have been the driving force of development, resulting in a weakened Shield competition. The Argus review is set to arrest the downward slide by bringing the focus back to the highest form of cricket and ensuring the right people are in place to achieve this.

Hi Fox - I'm going to slightly disagree with you on this. I do believe culture begets success - to some degree.

You and I both know players with talent, but who don't apply it all of the time, and subsequently don't succeed like they should. We've also had success in matches which seemed hopeless, because the players didn't turn on each other in adversity.

Now culture doesn't bowl, and respect can't bat, but trying as hard as you can to do what you can for your mates is as human as can be. This can manifest itself as a bowler trundling uphill in 36c, a batsman wearing bruises, and a fielder diving to stop a boundary. These actions matter, and this is because of team culture.

I think team culture is important - but only as a part of the big picture. I think the culture in the "Board Room" has affected Oz cricket a lot. Through selections, BBL emphasis etc. Our talent is not being utilized fully - that then erodes culture in the dressing room & on the field. Manifests in a cluttered bowling mind, & batting actions & fumbles in the field.

I don't see the 'winning' players, captains and coaches complaining especially when they are invited to countless management seminars as keynote speakers.

Management consultants the world over come onto the battlefield after the battle is finished and bayonet the wounded! Always was and always will be

Excellent article. I know what you feel, Michael, because I too opened the Argus report over the weekend, and having gone through the first page, closed it in disgust at the management-speak that it contained. And this is a report that was supposedly written by past players.

Sport by its very nature is instinctive. Sportspeople make decisions and react to situations unconsciously, within a fraction of a second. In such situations, things like instinct, muscle-memory and all that is reflexive about human character take over. The only way to get good at sport, apart from a good helping of natural talent, is to have a good work ethic. Nothing else matters. Character, fight, integrity, culture, personality - all of these apply to human beings who are in situations that demand calculated, cognitive responses (like in a corporate setting). They mean bugger all in sport.

It's funny how it's always the winning teams that happen to have the 'best culture', isn't it?

Maybe you should have bitten the bullet and actually read the report, it does not say at all what you seem to think it says.

@Sharath: Do you close medical journals and scientific journals in disgust after the first page as well? Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it worthless.

@Luke: But you got to admit that management literature is not exactly overflowing with knowledge or wisdom. Recently, we had to listen to someone management expert for about one hour on 'Opportunity'.

How do i like this on fb?

Michael,

Excellent article. I think this report is the last gasp of arrogance from our "golden" era of cricket. It was commisioned much the same as a royal commision, with the same sense of dis-belief and horror when England trounced us last ashes. I think our problem is we never gave any respect (or any interest) to/in any opposition, especially the English since the 1980's. And therefore we wern't prepared when England improved now to number one. If we had stopped slapping each other on the back for a minute and started looking at the opposition without prejudice we would have seen a real threat. Same with South Africa a few seasons ago. The report in my mind is irrelevant- the defeats were necessary to get rid of a god-awful captain and diffuse some of that blinding arrogance. We are 5th in the world now, and maybe we will drop further, but since we have now been punished for our cricket hubris I think things are looking up, report or no report.

agree with jeh, 'blindingly obvious' correctly conveys the picture.

I agree with you about the team culture argument. It's a weasel term which glosses over the simple fact that a team is performing well or it's not. You never hear about a bad team culture in winning teams or vice versa.

Some areas of this report seem to be a thinly veiled attack on Ponting. Not that he doesn't deserve criticism for Australian performances over the last few years, but Taylor and Waugh at least had the fortune of having McGrath and Warne in their teams.

I don't agree with you at all with the suggestion that winning and losing is cyclicial. There's no reason for that to be the case. The consistently high level performance of Brazilian football over the years or the success of a club like Man United put a lie to that argument.

@Sharath - 'Character, fight, integrity, culture, personality' not needed in cricket??? All the fitness, strength, skills etc. would be of no use, without aspects like pride, determination and single-mindedness (i.e. all aspects of character) to drive it, when trying to bat out a day and a half, to save a match.

It just maybe that's why over the years, Australia on average have been so good - the larrikin culture, the stomach for a fight etc. Ain't no such thing as an easy game, even against a weak Australian team. It might not always make them 'nice people' to an Asian mindset, but that's a whole other discussion...

Jeh - While also disliking management (double) speak, I agree, it is possible to overanalyse some things.

However, I disagree that winning 'always will be' cyclical and I doubt anyone could state that definitively, forever and ever. Maybe it's just teams getting comfortable/lazy/sloppy and not staying grounded and planning ahead that prevents them from maintaining a high level of excellence. Maybe, just maybe, a fresh look (like fresh blood) a la Argus is needed periodically to break out of a downward spiral early on and get on the next upswing faster - making the start of that spiral only a minor blip against (usually) consistent performance.

I also think team culture largely depends on the members in the team - and that one's natural culture plays a large part in it. Perhaps the board should profile the preferred culture (or attitude, rather) and look for players that fit that profile - as it will give the best results in the long term?

I believe the Australian side of the 1980s under Allan Border, coached by Bobby Simpson took a similar approach, resulting in a team containing hard-nosed battlers like Steve Waugh, David Boon, Dean Jones, Greg Matthews etc. The seeds of the team ethos/attitude/*culture* sown then is what carried Australian cricketing success through the 1990s and early 2000s... upto Argus. Perhaps a similar re-calibration of culture to fit the times is required now?