Restoring national pride is more
‘The goal would always be to win but we expect players to go and compete with respect’
Australia. It found the governing body was “arrogant”, “controlling” and compliant in creating a “win-at-all-costs” mentality that led players to “play the mongrel”. It documented a “strong systemic and organisational input” behind what unfolded in Cape Town, which was “not an aberration”.
Globally, the International Cricket Council reached a similar conclusion. The ICC’S policy on ball tampering had almost evoked the infamous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the US military.
Smith received the harshest ban permitted by the ICC for ball tampering at the time: a mere one Test. An ICC insider accepts that, until Cape Town, there was an insidious creep towards more elaborate forms of ball-tampering, leading to penalties for tampering subsequently being ratcheted up.
When Justin Langer was made Australia coach in May last year, rebuilding the aggressive team culture was at the core of his ambitions. “There was a great crisis in Australian cricket 16 months ago,” Langer says. “All culture is behaviour so if you behave well you’ve got a good culture. If you behave poorly you’ve got a poor culture so you’ve got to set about every day making sure that the behaviours are the ones you want to have in the cricket team.”
As Western Australia and Perth Scorchers coach, Langer had always been fascinated with culture and leadership. Perched on his Western Australia desk, facing him, was the book Legacy, about the All Blacks, as well as leadership tomes by Sir Alex Ferguson and Steve Jobs. Facing the other way was a business book called The No