How cricket explains the world

Third, while it is tempting to think that globalisation means a world without borders, the Australia-India cricket controversy tells us that national identity still remains very important.

Franklin Foer’s fascinating book How Soccer Explains the World (2004) shows how the politics of local, national and cultural identity are borne out on the fields of the world’s most popular sport. Foer’s study emphasises conflict, showing how The World Game functions as an outlet for separatist politics. But it also seeds the idea that nationalism comes in all forms, from the violent to the harmonious, and that sport is a way of understanding the politics of identity and the choices it carries.

Nationalism and foreign policy are changing in Australia. The Howard years were marked by what we might call “conflict nationalism”. We played hard on regional security and illegal immigration. We played in defiance of international sentiment on Iraq and Kyoto. We played strictly by the rules of national security. By contrast, the Rudd Government seems to subscribe to a different game plan, better described as “co-operative nationalism”, where international rules change the way we play and where collective efforts are made to improve the quality of the game.

There is no doubt that Australian cricket has dominated the international scene for many years now. The ferocious nationalism at the foundations of the game partly explain why. As Mike Coward reminded us in The Australian (January 8, 2008) the venerated baggy-green cap worn by Test players has a pre-Federation coat of arms, and thus comes with the same revolutionary identity as the flag of the Southern Cross.

In the context of the present series, it has been said that Australia plays with too much nationalism and India not enough. One team will seemingly sacrifice everything to win, another will collapse under the pressure of a fanatical opponent.

The current Australian team are certainly “conflict nationalists”. Like the foreign policy of the Howard years, this philosophy seems to have self-served Australian cricket well. The price of “conflict nationalism”, however, is that one’s success is achieved at the expense of other actors and even of the system as a whole.

In the same way, it is telling that in the face of racism allegedly committed against an Australian player, there is little sympathy for the Australian cause in the international cricket community. “Conflict nationalism” naturally leads to isolation. Our win at all costs approach has clearly left us with many riches but very few friends.

Yet there are other nationalisms, other ways to play with pride for one’s country whether in politics or sport. “Co-operative nationalism”, though no less interested in victory, believes that the more winners there are the better it will be for all actors in the long run. It seems that the world of cricket is pressing for something beyond a winner-take-all approach to resolving the present crisis.

Ricky Ponting and his team may have thrived as conflict nationalists in the past, but it seems the game has been damaged as a result. Nationalism remains important, but there are choices to be made about what kind of nationalism to pursue.

Of course - to adapt a phrase employed by Mr Howard before last year’s Federal election - there is a chance that if you change the team culture you will also change the results. Perhaps in cricket, as in politics, that is indeed what many people would like to see.