Narcissism and Australian cricket

By Fangster
November 27 2006

I'm a fervent supporter of the Australian cricket team. Having become a fan in the mid-80s when we were getting thumped by everyone, this recent decade of dominance has only just started to erase those memories.

One thing I never saw with the team back in the early-mid 80s (Chappell, Lillee, and company) was the really unpleasant goading I have seen from the team over the last few years -- well, probably longer really.

Today I saw Shane Warne sarcastically clapping Freddie Flintoff when he got himself out with a poor hook shot. When Kevin Pietersen caused overthrows yesterday during the Australian innings, both Ricky Ponting and Justin Langer indulged in some sarcastic laughter.

I also remember Warne pointing at the Frog-In-A-Blender guy and, again, sarcastically laughing in 1997 in South Africa when he got himself out against Warne's bowling, so it's been going on for the last decade or so.

To me it's the kind of behaviour I expect in a 12-year old. In psychiatric terms, it's clearly oblivious narcissism -- and it's exemplified worst in Ponting.

A good friend of mind from Queensland who was from a big sporting family -- his brother was Australia Under-19 cricket captain before chucking it all in to do a PhD -- completed his psychiatric training and decided, after having been a good long jumper and decathlete in his teenage years, to give cricket a go. He'd spent years in the backyard bowling to his elder brother, who "one day will be an Australian captain", and decided that he wanted to have a bat. He joined a local club side, and what he found was a group of guys in their 20s who were on the fringe of state selection, who had been told since their early days that they were the next big thing, etc. He told me later it was as if their personality development had simply stopped in early adolescence, and it was like being surrounded by 12-year olds in 25 to 30 year-old bodies.

For people like Warne and Ponting, I can't help but wonder if it's the same process going on. I hate it when I see it, and I feel embarrassed to see these icons indulging in pre-adolescent behaviour in the world spotlight.

It's not confined to cricket in our country -- our winter sports, particularly the rugby and AFL codes, are not immune (Australians will remember well the Wayne Carey saga in the AFL). I do wonder if it is worse in Australia as we are so sport-obsessed, perhaps more than any other nation as it's all we have to define ourselves with.

Is this behaviour an epiphenomenon of the competitiveness required to win? Are people willing to accept that kind of behaviour, if it was strongly associated with your team playing well enough to reach number 1 in the world?