Watching the superbly talented under-19 team winning the World Cup in New Zealand, one thing became clear: its attitude is a mirror image of the senior team’s. There was aggression, self-confidence, and those gestures that indicate the existence of these qualities — the fist-pump, the appeals, the chatter around the batsman. A bunch of teenagers full of energy and oozing with belligerence is not unusual. It would have been unnatural had it been otherwise.
As they grow, sportsmen are encouraged to “leave it all out there” as much by fans as by television which wants drama and spectacle.
Aggression is like cholesterol — there are two types. The good version pumps up the team, adds fizz to performance and suggests enjoyment. The bad kind is boorish and disrespects the game. The good is inward-focussed and positive, the bad focuses on the opponent and is negative. But there is a slippery slope between the two. Coach Rahul Dravid, a tough cricketer in his time, will no doubt be telling his wards how you can be aggressive without being boorish (not that the boys were anything like that, but that is a natural progression).
If such aggression helped the team intimidate opponents and win so easily, then it is a useful formula. Cricket has rules in place to check bad behaviour; the code of conduct ensures there is a line that is not crossed, or if it is, there are consequences. Umpires and match referees are responsible for controlling matters on the field; occasionally they get it wrong, punishing natural exuberance rather than bad behaviour itself but that’s because rules err on the side of conformity.
Still, an aggressive Indian outfit is a historical incongruity. At the senior level, it was Sourav Ganguly who made it a part of the team’s armour. He was personally belligerent, but the team still had a bunch of players who didn’t need physical manifestations of this attitude. You only have to imagine men like Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Tendulkar, Kumble and Srinath to understand why Ganguly’s brand of aggression didn’t permeate down to each individual. If you are not temperamentally tuned that way, then reactions look artificial and may even be counter-productive.
And then came Virat Kohli. He wears it all on his sleeve, and it seems to work for him. Recent series, both at home and away, have been marked by the occasional on-field flare up. Opponents who are aware of his temperament are happy to provoke him hoping that will upset India’s plans, or even earn him a fine or ban. It is a game-within-a-game that international teams play when they take on India. But rarely does Kohli slip into bad aggression. Does he reflect the attitude of the youth in India or is it the other way around? We’ll leave that to the pop psychologists. It has worked for him, and by extension, for Indian cricket.
In the years when Indian cricketers were praised for being gentlemen losers, we told ourselves that being well behaved was the essence of all sport. Winning or losing was incidental. Looking back now, it seems to me that there was a touch of desperation in this attitude. It was the consolation of the defeated. You may be better cricketers, we seemed to be telling players from around the world, but we say “Please” and “Thank you” and grace before meals.
It is impossible to discuss player behaviour in any sport without appearing like a fuddy duddy. Young fans are not hung on behaviour; it is only the older ones who go on about the good old days. But cricket has shown us repeatedly — and not just in player behaviour — that the old days were seldom “good”, and that whatever it is today is tomorrow’s good old days.
At least today’s captains do not challenge their counterparts to a wrestling match as Australia’s Joe Darling did at the turn of the last century; nor do they engage in the range of activities by W.G. Grace that come under the head of “cheating”. Bodyline certainly wasn’t cricket. The mythology of cricket — the belief in a golden past without any aberrations or gambling or deception — has been exploded often enough, but it is convenient to believe that it existed. I once saw an international cricketer chasing another with a bat determined to make a point; you couldn’t tell them cricket was a gentleman’s game.
Why do we want our players to be well behaved, soft spoken, modest and self-effacing? In any group of individuals, there will be those who are all of the above as well as those who are assertive, noisy and full of themselves, even arrogant.
Is it better to be aggressive and win rather than diffident and lose? It is better to win, might be the short answer. But that ignores the two types of aggression which, admittedly, have to be in delicate balance. It is easy to forget this while watching in action either Kohli’s India or Prithvi Shaw’s.
