Everybody who follows cricket will already know what I’m talking about. For those who don’t or are generally curious, link. Gist being, Australia recently lost a test quite badly, and right after that dropped(‘cut’ for Americans?) four of its players for not submitting three points on “how they could improve” to the coach. What do interested dopers make of this move?
I think it’s ridiculous that the players have to engage in that kind of bullshit.
It’s like that “where do you see yourself in five years?” crap in job interviews.
The players could have avoided this issue by spouting some kind of corporate babble. But what would be the point of that?
I’m reminded of the way that during the early days of the 1989 Ashes tour Allan Border was caught by a microphone telling Craig McDermott something along the lines of “Do that again, son, and you’ll be on the next fucking plane home.”
I’m also reminded of one of the Latvian jokes I’ve been seeing on Reddit recently, that spoofs this kind of useless “team-building” garbage:
"Is joke from Latvia. I tell now.
Joke: Latvian try to cross river. Has dog, potatoes, and dead son’s body. Can only take two across river at one time. If he leave dog with potatoes or corpse, dog eat them. Is very sad. Also is not good boat."
Whatever. I am just sitting back and enjoying seeing the damn Aussies implode.
I think they should have done what they were asked.
They are professionals? They get paid? That’s called a job. If you work for me and I ask you to do something, and you fail to do it, you’re fired. The fact that you regard the task as stupid or pointless, even if it is, does not matter at all.
Personally I think it’s time for a new coach … and even better don’t replace him.
As hilarious as I think it is that Australia have fallen to this, I do agree with this. Regardless of how they feel about what they’ve been asked to do, they have been asked to do it, and the fact that they haven’t felt it necessary to does call into question their professionalism.
I honestly don’t think they should have been dropped from the side for it, though. But the fact that they were suggests to me that these is more to it.
As a New Zealander I feel a moral obligation to celebrate all Australian sporting mishaps, but I can’t help feeling that this was a bullshit jack-up by the management. There’s got to be more to it than this.
Perfectly said.
They’d be better off spending time in the nets than filling in questionnaires.
Still, being a Brit, I’m not going to lose much sleep about it…
Yeah, they probably should have turned in some BS answers to the questions: It’s not like it’s hard to come up with some random thing. Failure to do so demonstrates a bit of incompetence. But for the coaches to actually ask for this, and then to fire the players who didn’t, displays an absolutely stunning level of incompetence.
I get the sense that this was a symptom of serious internal division in the team, and the refusal to do the homework was seen as some sort of limit-testing by those disgruntled with the leadership. Players who are used to winning rarely blame themselves for failure, and a modestly challenging task that might prompt introspection is hardly asking for much. Lack of cohesiveness is poison to teams, and an unwillingness to commit even to this was no doubt interpreted as a challenge to the leadership. As any primary school teacher knows, the only response to limit testing is to firmly enforce boundaries. Anything other than a firm response would have meant that management had totally lost control.
Of course, this can also be translated into a pissing contest that got out of control.
Sorry for not really contributing to my own thread. A lot of the folks are saying there’s more to it than meets the eye. And while there may be some truth to that, I also think the Aussie management has been very forthright. They freely stated that Usman Khawaja has had an attitude problem for instance, but that Shane Watson is usually very professional and just happened to be one of the people who was on the wrong side when they decided to make an example. I was very impressed by Pattinson’s press conference. Very contrite.
'Zactly. The other players did as the coach asked; are these four just too “special” to not follow through on a team assignment? Now, I’ll concede it might be a bad idea for the coach to have made such an assignment in the first place, but I think you do as the coach asks or you find another team to play for. The coach is the boss - or ought to be.
The cricket coach is what the team use to travel to the ground.
On the other hand, if the captain say’s “On ya bike, son”, you are going home alone.
Thanks - of course I was using “coach” in its generic sporting sense. I still remember a sign at a rest stop on a major British highway: “No football coaches allowed.” It didn’t mean quite what I thought it did at first.
Isn’t the coach’s job to do his utmost to make sure his team has good morale and plays their best? It seems to me that this is a case of incompetent coaching (in insisting on such a stupid exercise), and of the coach putting his ego above the good of the team (in firing the players who rebelled against it). The person who needs to go is the coach (or whoever was actually responsible for the “assignment” and the firings).
It may have done. We’ve learned through painful experience that yelling at dumb players for a living turns those guys into quite the asshole. 
Stupid idea to make them do it, but stupider for them to refuse. You can’t write three sentences for the privilege of representing your country? Good, fuck off.
Crap. Name any other sport where failure to do as the coach (or captain) has asked is consequence-free. Also, if Australia were to try to compete without a coach, it would be the end of the Aussies as a serious cricket team.
I don’t know whether there are other professional, international sports where coaches are of less functional importance than the captain. As I posted above, the captain runs any decent cricket team on his Todd Malone. It may be an anachronism, but it’s a traditional character of the sport, and I’m nothing if not a traditionalist.
On a point of order, they aren’t exactly a serious team at the moment with a coach. And I can’t see how Arthurs or any other nominated coach coach is going to change that. As distinct from the selector identifying the best available squad, and the captain gelling the available talent into playing their best.
So what’s the coach doing anyway? Calling the bowling changes, setting the field, sending out an sms “give 'im one about his nostrils?”, setting the batting order, working on footwork when playing a square drive? Or just helping with some fielding drills, a bit of media management and research into opposition players?
Clarke is probably the best batsman going round at the moment, and his on-field captaincy has been sound with a touch of quality about it, but his personnel management has meant a few too many Test batsmen aren’t on his Christmas card list. (Katich, Hussey, now Watson et al).
Exactly. They are not a journeyman club or First Class player. They are a first XI player for the national squad. They are supposed to be bigger than this.