Why are awful Aussies obsessed with

david.leggat@nzherald.co.nz What is it with Australian cricketers and New Zealand’s way of playing the game?

Wicketkeeper Matthew Wade has warned his fellow Australian cricketers away from following New Zealand’s nice-guy approach.

It sounds suspiciously like a degree of paranoia is setting in across the Ditch in the wake of the reviews into the Australian team’s appalling record of on-field conduct.

The talk is all of how Australia need to mend their more overt aggressive tendencies on the field in the wake of the ugly moments in the recent series against South Africa, and the ball tampering incident in Cape Town in March.

Remember the aftermath of the 2015 World Cup final.

The morning after Australia’s seven-wicket win, a clearly hungover wicketkeeper Brad Haddin did a radio interview he so clearly shouldn’t have.

Haddin had given significant sendoffs to New Zealand batsmen, his contribution to their dismissal for 183.

New Zealand’s reputation at the good guys of world cricket was firmly in place by then. Haddin wasn’t having any of it.

“You know what? They deserved it,” Haddin said of his sledging that day. He admitted he felt “uncomfortable” playing them. Presumably because they didn’t utter a barrage of abuse throughout the day.

“I said in the team meeting [before the final]: ‘I can’t stand for this anymore, we’re going at them as hard as we can.’

“I said, ‘I’m not playing cricket like this . . . I’m letting everything [out]’.”

Former Australia coach Darren Lehmann is among those who have suggested a lead should be taken out of the New Zealand playbook. No thanks, said wicketkeeper Wade.

“I hope now we don’t go too far the other way and lose all our drive . . . and try to play like New Zealand,” the combative Wade said.

It was an odd remark but scratch the surface and you’ll have plenty of Australian players with a privately similar perspective. Dial it back a touch, but not too much, would be their thinking.