The storm around that autobiography in England has shone a bright light on team spirit – gees as we like to say in this country.
It’s a coincidence that in Randburg tonight the South African cricket team will be unveiling its ‘ProteaFire’ project. It is a campaign which speaks to the search for an identity for the national side, the creation of an entity of which the players could be proud and which future generations can aspire to become a part of.
The project was created by the team and arose out of discussions by senior players, led by former captain Graeme Smith, that puts the national emblem at centre of everything that is good about the team’s ethos.
It’s easy to be dismissive of such enterprises – hocus pocus, pie-in-the-sky, kumbaya garbage that’s got nothing to do with facing Mitchell Johnson or trying to bowl out Michael Clarke. However, as the revelations pouring out of Kevin Pietersen’s book suggest, a strong team ethos is critical to creating a happy and harmonious environment which allow players to perform to the best of their ability FOR the team.
In recent years, South Africa has shown that. Of course there’s been a very special generation of players who’ve all performed at a very high level at the same time. However, as fighting draws in Adelaide (2012), the Wanderers (last year) and Colombo in July indicate, the bonds between the players and the willingness to fight for each other (and not against as Pietersen claims occurred in the England dressing-room) has led to historic triumphs.
When the side returned from Sri Lanka in July having won a Test series there for first time in 20 years, I asked the new Test captain, what that selflessness said about his team. “The suggestion is pretty blatant … it’s an extreme hunger and deep passion to represent the country as best they can – to put their averages aside, to put their egos aside for the accolades of possibly getting a fifty or a hundred – those things were immaterial,” Hashim Amla explained.
At a breakfast earlier this week, Dale Steyn talked about how this team ethic had made it easier for new players coming into the side, and how the current holders of the Proteas cap take enormous pride in maintaining and improving that team spirit.
Leaving behind a legacy involves more than just the achievements on the field.
In light of what he has written, what will Pietersen and the England team led by Andrew Strauss and now Alastair Cook and coached by Andy Flower leave behind as far as legacy is concerned?
Ugly name calling and childish tales about bullying?
The creation of ‘ProteaFire’ is the South African team’s attempt to avoid that. - The Star