In his first press conference in Australia this week, Virat Kohli put his playing philosophy into perspective, saying: “Batsmen can be aggressive without saying anything. For me, aggression is playing to win and an obsession that I should win every ball for my team.“Everyone has a different meaning, but for me it means to win the game at any cost and give 120 per cent for my team, whether I am fielding, or even clapping for someone while sitting on the bench, or batting, or running between the wickets.”
Many would argue that these are great words full of passion from a cricketer whose sole motto while leading his team is to win the game. One would expect the Australians to be the first to applaud Kohli for his intensity and passion to win at “any cost”. At any other time in their cricketing history, they would have hailed him as a worthy rival who deserves great respect.
But in the aftermath of the ball-tampering incident that led to Cricket Australia (CA) imposing bans on its captain and vice-captain Steve Smith and David Warner, the Australians may have a different reaction, while they are still counting the costs of the embarrassment caused to their nation by being caught cheating in full public glare.
Australians are masters of sledging opponents with their sharp, biting verbal volleys. Since their motto is “to win at any cost” — much like what Kohli’s is — these behavioural aberrations were accepted by their establishment as motivational injections that spurred them on to perform better.
Ricky Ponting’s team was once called a “pack of wolves”, whom he unleashed on rivals to unsettle them. Unfazed and encouraged, the team cared little about what the world felt about them. In fact, in many countries, there is a grudging admiration for the “Australian way” of playing which is believed to be part of their superior “sporting culture”.
Kohli, it is said by many Indians with great pride, is more Australian than Indian. It is because he is that “macho” man who is not shy of a fight, enjoys verbal jousts and is aggression personified; characteristics that are trademark Australian.
This “Australian way” of playing has been put on the dissection table, and the Ethics Commission that was formed by their board to suggest reforms and reasons for why their players went against the spirit of the game has arrived at some interesting conclusions. Kohli, the Indian board and the admirers of this aggression as a key motivator for winning would do well to read that report and reflect on its findings, as the Australian board is being forced to do.
The Ethics Commission findings are damaging for a culture that is so desperate to win without “counting its costs”. The commission, in an interesting interplay of words, says that the problem is not that the Australians are told to “win at all costs”, but to win “without counting its cost”.
The report goes on to blame the establishment for keeping quiet for all the wrongdoings of the players, even encouraging them to cross the line as long as it results in wins. This culture has seeped into all grades of cricket — right from bottom to the top — and very harsh measures have been suggested to eradicate this widespread malice of “playing only to win.” For BCCI and the public, there are many other important observations in the report they would do well to heed, none more important than the following.
“However, even sponsors feel that although CA has a clear sense of the ‘price’ of its product, it has lost sight of its ‘value’. For them, cricket’s value lies in the intangible qualities of memory and association, and they worry that Australian board has lost the ability to see that which cannot be measured.
“Cricket’s greatest value may lie in tending to the underlying and intrinsic attributes of the game, rather than in catering to the needs of those stakeholders with the loudest voices or deepest pockets. This is not a nostalgic longing for a golden age. It is recognition that some aspects of the game are so essential as to be timeless and that it is cricket’s ongoing connection with its past that gives it substance.”