Beyond the boundary : captains and competition in the context of England v Australia[1]
Adrian Smith
Introduction
Cricket fans and imperial historians find an Ashes series illuminating in terms of Anglo-Australian sporting rivalry; and England’s 2-1 triumph at home in the summer of 2009 was no exception.[2] The team had been humiliated 5-0 in its disastrous winter tour of 2006-7, reversing a dramatic series win on home soil in 2005. Australia’s rapid resurgence in the subsequent one day matches revived a belief back home that India, with players proficient in every form of the modern game, has supplanted England as the arch enemy. Nevertheless, the real significance of the 2009 Ashes series was in proving that England’s success four years earlier had been no mere blip; not least because Australia had comfortably cruised to victory in all but one of the previous ten contests.[3] In consolidating its record at home, albeit by the narrowest of margins, English cricket had preserved its ‘most precious asset, the only event that still holds the nation’s attention.’[4] The England and Wales Cricket Board may grudgingly acknowledge India as modern cricket’s financial powerhouse, and sceptics down under may question the iconic status of the Ashes, but this is a test series that remains the focal point of one of the world’s most well-established sporting rivalries. With – for the present – the obvious exception of football, England-Australia constitutes both nations’ fiercest sporting contest.[5]
So sweeping a claim is of course contestable, until one recalls the triumphalist tone of the British media when Team GB found itself above Australia in the final medals table at the 2008 Beijing Olympics – for all the ritual acknowledgment of inclusivity, there was a familiar whiff of metropolitan insensitivity and post-imperial schadenfreude.[6] Nor should one ignore the teeth-gnashing and soul-searching in the Australian press once it became obvious that the ‘lucky country’s’ rock-solid assumption of Pommie sporting inferiority had so demonstrably been subverted: no consolation could be found in the Union Flag being raised far from antipodean Olympians’ most natural environments, the swimming pool and the velodrome – these were precisely the venues at which UK Sport demonstrated how much had been learnt from Australia’s elite-based, performance-focused academy system.[7]
This reminds us of course that rivals can collaborate when convenient, witness England and Australia’s duopoly of power within the Imperial, later International, Cricket Conference for much of the last century. Tony Collins has drawn upon the historiographical debate regarding sport as a virility test for emerging nationhood in order to demonstrate, through the example of rugby union, ‘how a major Australian sport viewed the imperial relationship and to question the assumption that Anglo-Australian sporting rivalry necessarily meant national antagonism at a political level.’ By highlighting the extent to which the Dominions’ governing bodies deferred to the Rugby Football Union in the inter-war period, Collins calls in to question a popular assumption that, ‘sporting rivalry automatically means national rivalry at a cultural or political level’ – clearly a necessary reminder in any reflection upon Anglo-Australian sporting contest.[8]
This article recognises the centrality of cricket to that contest; and, crucially, the focus here is upon England as a culturally distinctive national entity within an increasingly fragmented British archipelago. When exploring the diverse nature of Anglo-Australian sporting rivalry in the modern era, the contribution of rugby can scarcely be ignored: union may now enjoy a much higher profile than league in Britain, but across Australia the reverse is of course the case. Due consideration is given to other keenly contested sports, exploring in what exceptional circumstances Australian elite athletes look to their British counterparts as role models. Middle-distance running is one contender, and cycling another. Yet, with regard to the latter, both countries appear united (with the United States) in challenging continental Europe’s long-standing pre-eminence in professional road racing: yet again national rivalry is subsumed into a wider, ever more complex remoulding of sporting competition; indifferent to old-fashioned patriotism and subservient to the particular demands of globalisation, professionalism, and economic liberalisation.
The second half of the article utilises Anglo-Australian sporting rivalry to provide a particular perspective upon leadership in sport – and in particular leadership on the field of play. Reference is made to captains from the first half of the past century, notably cricket’s Douglas Jardine and his counterpart, Bill Woodfull, during England’s controversial ‘bodyline tour’ of 1932-3.[9] However, attention focuses upon captaincy across the past forty years. For an England captain in just about any sport, taking on Australia is always as tough as it gets. Nor, as we shall see, is football the exception to the rule given its designated importance within the Australian Institute of Sport, and the value now placed upon elite players gaining experience at the highest level in Europe.[10]
Since Weber first wrestled with notions of how the exceptional individual rises above the ‘technical rationality’ of contemporary life, and in so doing sets an example to others, commentators on sport have laboured to comprehend the nature of leadership. Weber highlighted the ‘antibureaucratic and charismatic’ nature of leadership, to which Goffee and Jones have added ‘authenticity’, emphasising that captains of industry – and of sport – have an ethical responsibility to those they lead and to those scrutinising their performance.[11] For elite sport in a digital age the latter constitutes a global audience, individually and collectively auditing the performance of the most high profile player on the pitch: the captain.
Of particular interest are Australia’s two most recent cricket captains, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting; and the means by which both, in very different ways, have drawn upon popular mythology and tradition, whether authentic or invented, to motivate their players. The focus is upon challenging the metropole, particularly in its own backyard. An assumption in the new world is that the old world not only constitutes the old order, but embodies an outmoded approach to ‘playing the game’. An argument here is that the most discernibly ‘modern’ captain of the postwar era was an English intellectual whose reading of leadership subverted an Australian assumption of middle-class mediocrity: a mind-set that sees successful England skippers as either exceptions to the norm (a proletarian Ray Illingworth, or a post-colonial Tony Greig) or calculating patrician automatons (read Douglas Jardine). Thus, in the context of Anglo-Australian rivalry, attention focuses upon Mike Brearley’s claim to be both the most cerebral and the most comprehensively successful England captain since the Second World War.
While clearly the focus is upon cricket, due consideration is given to captaincy in those other sports at the heart of Anglo-Australian competition, most notably rugby union. A key question is whether the playmaker – the most talented, truly exceptional player – can ever assume the mantle of leadership, whether on or off the pitch: are captaincy and genius compatible? Here it is hard to avoid football. Yet this is not to exclude Australia given the prominence of its star players in European club football; and of course the Socceroos’ impressive record in qualifying for successive World Cups, and in 2006 almost reaching the quarter-finals. Furthermore, this is a team that returned home victorious the last time it visited England.
Au s tralia v England – it is just not cricket
Although ‘taking on the Aussies’ remains synonymous with cricket, in recent decades rugby union has attracted almost as much attention: since the tournament was initiated in 1987 at least five of the six World Cups have seen Australia block England’s path to glory.[12] A popular assumption is that, unlike their more powerful counterparts in league, the Wallabies only became a serious force in world rugby from the mid-1980s. In fact England’s postwar record against Australia was lamentable: across four decades from 1948 the men in white won only twice, and on each of their three visits to the south Pacific they lost every test. The first victory came as late as 1958, in a particularly brutal contest at Twickenham, made memorable only by winger Peter Jackson’s spectacular injury-time try.[13] The advent of the professional game in 1995 saw the demise of the traditional tour, with the two sides now playing each other twice a year for the near anonymous Cook Cup.[14] Changing fortunes and frequency of fixtures helped redress the balance, but at the end of the 2008-9 season the Wallabies retained an impressive 57.1% success rate.[15]
Devotees of rugby league would see their sport as complementing the intensity of the cricketing contest long before Twickenham started to take Australia seriously; indeed reporters deemed the rapidly named Kangaroos’ inaugural tour in 1908-9 to be the Northern Union’s very own ‘Ashes’.[16] Any claim to parity with cricket rests on regarding Great Britain as synonymous with England, and in reality the thirteen-man version of the Lions has been firmly rooted in the largest of the home nations. In 2008 the Rugby Football League effectively relaunched England as a Great Britain substitute. Yet a solitary win against Papua New Guinea in the 2008 World Cup exposed the frailty of England playing alone – Australia imposed a humiliating 52-4 defeat, followed a year later by a 46-16 victory in the final of the Four Nations Tournament.[17]
The prominence of cricket, and now rugby, has obscured those other sports where England v Australia remains the most vital fixture; or alternatively, where individual Australians are seen as key measures of prowess and progress. In cricket batsman Don Bradman and spin bowler Shane Warne would be obvious examples, but do their counterparts exist in other sports? Tennis would offer the most obvious parallel, with the 1960s ‘grand slam’ champion Rod Laver matching Sir Don Bradman in consistency of performance, extended tenure at the top, and a demonstrable superiority over players who at any other time would be considered the very best.
One revealing insight into the Australian sporting psyche is the absence of a reverse phenomenon whereby British – and most especially English – elite athletes are seen to set the highest standard of achievement. Consider one of the few sports in the postwar era where the English just might have impressed their Australian rivals: athletics, on the track. In the 1950s and 1960s the success of John Landy, Herb Elliot, and later Ron Clarke convinced Australian middle-distance runners that they had little to learn from any coaching revolution taking place in Britain: former refugee Frantz Stampel was already settled in Melbourne by the time of the 1956 Games. Along with Arthur Lydiard in New Zealand, Stampel embodied a systematic ‘scientific’ alternative to the Australian Percy Cerruty’s highly unorthodox training methods.[18] The Cerruty-Stampel dialectic survived the arrival of English Olympians Seb Coe and Steve Ovett, and later Steve Cram and Peter Elliott; since then all eyes have focused upon east Africa and the United States.
Nor is British athletics alone in generating polite indifference. On the water Britain’s success at successive Olympics has scarcely dented a conviction Australia shares with France that big boats mark the true measure of a nation’s sailing prowess. It was after all an Australian crew which ended the United States’ 132-year retention of the America’s Cup[19] Britain’s recent resurgence in aquatic events was reflected in the 49 medals secured at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Nevertheless, Australia confirmed its historic pre-eminence in swimming, with 70 of its total 177 medals won in the pool.[20] Hockey and equestrianism display a similar conviction that nothing can be learnt from the British; and the same, surprisingly, is true of football; immigrant pioneers of soccer in and around Melbourne looked to their east European roots for inspiration.[21] So, if not football, is there any elite sport where Australians do see their British counterparts as setting the pace?
Since the Beijing Olympics cycling does seem the obvious contender. Britain’s victories in the velodrome and Australia’s success on the road suggest a twin-track Anglo-Saxon assault on world cycling. However, any tacit playing to respective nations’ strengths seems subverted by the Australian sprint cyclists’ superior performance at the 2010 Commonwealth Games; and by the transition from track racing of Britain’s most respected road racers, all-rounder Bradley Wiggins and specialist sprinter Mark Cavendish. The two men epitomise GB Cycling’s enthusiastic embrace of both track and tour. Cycling suggests a grudging mutual respect, witness a healthy regard for veteran Australian road racers such as Robbie McEwen and Stuart O’Grady. From Greg Lemond to Lance Armstrong, the United States is seen as chasing down continental Europe’s historic dominance of the Tour de France. In reality, once one looks behind the maillot jaune, it is invariably Australia which provides the strongest non-European presence among the peloton. Even before Cadel Evans’ serial successes in 2007 and 2008, Australia could boast five current or recent stage winners.[22]
At its inception, it appeared Team Sky had quite literally a mountain to climb if British sprinters were to match the endurance of their Australian counterparts. Yet two years later, and with an annual budget accelerating above ￡10 million, the outlook appeared very different: Evans remained exceptional in his all-round ability; but in 2009 he more than met his match in Bradley Wiggins, whose fourth place on the Tour equalled the best finish ever by a British rider; admittedly, a year later respective fortunes were reversed. Previously the secret of Australia’s success on the Tour was that the fast men invariably reached Paris.[23] All too often, by comparison, British sprinters such as Chris Boardman had failed to make the third week. In 2009 Mark Cavendish triumphantly stated his credentials as a survivor, securing a sixth stage win in spectacular fashion on the Champs Elysées. While the 2010 Tour provided a baptism of fire for Wiggins and his fellow riders on Team Sky, Cavendish survived a below-par first week to confirm his status as Britain’s greatest ever sprinter.[24]
Cycling may generate mutual respect, but clearly there remain those sports where Australia is viewed by the home nations as more of a role model than a rival; and in one particular – post-colonial – sport the southern hemisphere rules supreme. Like badminton, netball is a legacy of empire with a relatively low profile. Unlike badminton, the standard of play varies enormously across the world. Thus, every four years the Commonwealth Games highlights the gulf between British netball and the ultra-competitive, ferociously fast, compellingly graceful version played in southern Asia and the antipodes.[25] It is scarcely surprising that on both sides of the Tasman netball is televised as a major spectator sport.