India’s ‘win at all costs’ mentality flies in face of new-look Aussies ’elite honesty’ pledge

Aussie cricket was last month pilloried for neglecting the spirit of the game and playing with a ‘win at all costs’ attitude. It’s that exact mentality that India intends to draw on for success this summer.

India skipper Virat Kohli says he ‘loves’ playing in Australia.

It is not a slip of the tongue, it is a message of intent.

India coach Ravi Shastri using the exact language that seemingly landed Australian cricket in one of its worst performing periods in decades.

“Let me be very clear,” Shastri says as he stares down the barrel of the camera, “India plays to win at all costs.”

Last month Australian cricket was lashed by an independent review, pilloried for neglecting the spirit of cricket and playing with a “win at all costs” attitude.

India skipper Virat Kohli says he ‘loves’ playing in Australia. Picture: AAP.

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Players pledged to be better and phrases such as “elite honesty” became part of the summer’s mantra.

But it could be change that comes at a cost in the Test series against India. We no longer seem to hold the upper hand.

Shastri is speaking in 2 Nations 1 Obsession, a documentary by renowned sports filmmaker Peter Dickson thatdelves in to the ever-increasing antagonism between Australia and India.

Shastri is one of a few Indian voices in the two-part series, being aired on Fox Cricket from Wednesday, along with Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Bishan Bedi.

It tracks the rise of Indian cricket from subservient easybeats through the middle of last century, to an economic and cricketing behemoth, through the prism of clashes with Australia.

With that financial power has come cricketing confidence.

It rose steadily on the back of more and more wins against Australia — the all-time idols of so many of India’s 1.5 billion people.

Subservience gave way to superiority.

Virat Kohli and India won’t be ‘taking their foot off the gas’.

Take this year’s 4-1 Test series loss to England in England.

At the end of the series India captain Virat Kohli said it was more about his team playing badly than the home team playing well.

“More often than not we have given the advantage to the opposition rather than them brilliantly turning around a situation,” he said.

That’s the new India, led by Kohli, who has grown in stature on the back of his niggling predecessors, such as Sourav Ganguly.

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“He is ten times feistier than Ganguly,” Gavaskar says of Kohli in the documentary.

Wearing sunglasses, as he almost always does, Kohli stepped down off the team bus in Brisbane on Saturday, at the request of local media, just to give them a shot.

With a big, broad smile he said he “loved” Australia.

It was enough of a compliment to get the locals riled.

Kohli and India had a tough time of it in England earlier this year.

Kohli said he wouldn’t sledge this summer, that he was older, wiser, and didn’t need it to fire him up.

“Those were very immature things that I needed to feed on in early days of my career,” he said.

But then Shastri said Kohli, and his team, would never “take their foot of the gas”

India has never won a series in Australia.

But now India is arguably more Australian than Australia.

With Kohli and Shastri leading the charge, it could be a matter of if, not when it happens.

After all, as Shastri says, they are playing to win at all costs.

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