What does Greg Chappell know of culture or leadership?

Nothing turns on the motormouth indiscretions of sporting heroes so much as the prospect of an upcoming autobiographical book. Greg Chappell, whose relationship with India can only be described as tempestuous, has, with his ‘bodyline’ comments on Indian leadership traits and culture, waded into pop-psychological territory into which angels fear to tread. Indian “culture”, Chappell noted at an event in Adelaide to promote his book, doesn’t foster a sense of team spirit. Indians, he added, “lack leaders in the team because they are not trained to be leaders” since in Indian society, it was the parents and schoolteachers who made the big decisions in one’s formative years. [caption id=“attachment_238170” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“Guess who’s talking down Indian culture. Reuters”]  [/caption] Making more sweeping generalisations, Chappell suggested that Indian culture was susceptible to the “ tall poppy syndrome” – which theorises that people of merit don’t wish to be outstanding for fear of drawing critical attention to themselves. There are, of course, many things wrong with the current Indian cricketing team’s state of mind; even Sunil Gavaskar has confessed to an inability to understand the “psyche” of the team, which appeared to wither too easily to the Aussie onslaught, and not hungry enough to want to win. And Indian cricket administrators, who are high on hubris, have not exactly covered themselves in glory either. But by picking on the Indian cricket team’s momentarily flagging fortunes based on two bad overseas tours, and tying it up in tenuous fashion to imagined Indian cultural frailties, Chappell is guilty of overstating a weak case. The fact of it is that the current Indian cricket team is in a transitional phase: its ageing stars, whose career in many ways represented the Coming of Age of Indian cricket, are on the cusp of retirement, and having seen many wondrous years, they appear for the moment to lack the will to win. In statistical terms it is an outlier moment, and not truly representative of the progression of the Indian cricket team in recent years, which saw it head the ICC rankings for virtually every form of the game. Chappell’s fulminations about the Indian cricketers’ manifest lack of interest in excelling in Test cricket (and disproportionate interest in the shorter forms of the game) is a halfways-valid point, but in many ways it represents an old-timer romantic’s lament about a world that is evolving at top speed. It’s hard to say if, barely years from now, Test cricket will even be played in its current format, given the wholesale lack of spectator and commercial interest in it, and the manner in which the shorter forms of the game have managed to reinvent themselves – and establish themselves as a thumping commercial success. Chappell’s observations framing the failure of Indian leadership traits in a larger cultural context are rather more wide of the mark. It is of course true that Indian sportsmen don’t always bring a “killer instinct” to the game. Gavaskar himself fumed that Ishant Sharma was seen smiling after dropping Michael Clarke off his own bowling, which reprieve Clarke capitalised on by scoring a triple century. But inversely, the Aussie “win at all cost” culture isn’t exactly worthy of emulation either, and honestly doesn’t win them many friends. The pretence that Aussie cricketers play fair on the field has long been shattered. As Peter Roebuck wrote after the disastrous Indian tour of Australia in 2008, Australian cricketers, once the pride of professional sportsmen, were conducting themselves more like a pack of wild dogs. “Make no mistake, it is not only the reputation of these cricketers that has suffered,” wrote Roebuck. “Australia itself has been embarrassed.” Other commentators fret that bad sportsmanship is becoming something of an Australian national trait. And even away from the playing field, triumphalist Australian sportsmen have in the past shown themselves up to be boors – hurling refrigerators from the eighth floor of the athletes’ village at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and destroying furniture and light fittings during drunken binges. Greg Chappell doubtless had a good cricketing record, and perhaps was a great captain and cricketing strategist as well. But his name will forever remain associated in the annals of cricketing history with the underarm ball episode. That, dear Greg, says more about leadership and culture and the win-at-all-costs culture that you epitomised than anything you might say today. If that is what a culture of sporting success means, I’d rather we remained losers.