Steve Waugh says his era not to blame for failed culture

Steve Waugh says the ‘mental disintegration’ approach of his era is not to blame for the cultural failing of the current side.

Steve Waugh is preparing to embark on The Captain's Ride to raise money for children with rare diseases. Picture: Hollie Adams

Steve Waugh says it is “sad” that Australian cricket side has lost respect and that players such as Moeen Ali actively dislike the team and its culture.

The former captain admitted more recent sides may have been trying to replicate the tough approach of his era, but something got lost in translation.

Moeen caused headlines this week with his revelation that the Australians were so ugly on the field that he could not like them. He also claimed one player called him “Osama” in 2015, but those involved say he misheard the comment and that the English player wanted no action taken at the time.

“It does worry me,” Waugh said. “As a player you don’t want people to love you, but you don’t want people to dislike you. We always have this attitude where they would love to beat the Australian side and all that stuff but I don’t think we wanted to be hated by the opposition.

“How it got to that point, I’m not sure. I’m sure we weren’t everyone’s favourite team when I was playing, we played it hard but I think we played it fair and after the game we’d be happy to talk to the opposition, have a drink, help lesser nations out when they were starting. But for Moeen Ali to say that … he sounds like a pretty relaxed sort of guy who doesn’t get too flustered and he wouldn’t say that without some sort of reason for it, it’s got to be a concern.

“If the stuff that was said about him was said it is pretty ugly stuff.”

England spinner Moeen Ali. Photo: AAP

Waugh, who was in Sydney promoting his Captain’s Ride which raises money for children with rare diseases, keeps his distance from cricket and pushes back a little when it is suggested there is a straight line from the “mental disintegration” approach of his era to now.

“I didn’t come up with the term mental disintegration, I’ve got it for life and I can’t change it,” he said.

“I always believed that if we were playing really good cricket you didn’t need to talk the opposition down. Sure we played it tough, we said a bit out there, but I would like to think it was more about encouraging ourselves than things pointed at the opposition. That happened a couple of times and players got pulled up for it.

“I don’t say we enjoyed that happening, it was more how can we motivate ourselves to have that spirit and play it hard but it is a long bow to draw from 15 years ago to how we are now. It’s been a gradual position. Maybe some of the recent players have thought ‘that’s the way they use to play, we’ve got to follow their footsteps’. It’s a bit like the West Indies when they had that great era. then the new players thought ‘we can play the same way, have the same body language, carry on the same way’, but they weren’t the same players.

“You almost have to earn the right to play like your previous teams have. It somehow got lost in translation and what happened in South Africa shocked a lot of people.”

Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner speak to the media following the ball tampering scandal in South Africa. Photo: AFP

Waugh believes teams can lose touch with reality.

“When you are playing you are in such a bubble you are probably not as aware that it is happening as people are from the outside, maybe you don’t listen because you think you are going OK and not doing anything wrong,” he said. “At the end of the day you have to have strong leadership and the coach and captain are at the forefront there and unfortunately they have both suffered the consequences. Darren’s no longer there and Steve has a year off. It’s a lesson to everyone.

“I was a shocked bystander like most people wondering how it could get to a stage where you would even contemplate doing that and then actually implementing it.

“I don’t know what happened there, I think they lost all sense of reality and in a lot of ways maybe it had to come to that point.”

“You saw a press conference where they thought an apology was good enough and they would move on from it probably showed how far the team and the players had moved away from reality.

“It shocked all Australians yet I think the team was sheltered from all of that and for some reason a couple of bad habits crept into that side and culminated in the embarrassment of what happened in that Test match.”

Waugh said Moeen’s comments and the suggestion that other sides did not respect the Australian team was upsetting.

“That’s sad, because you are all connected when you wear the baggy green and you are all joined together and things said about the current era almost reflects on the past,” Waugh said. “It’s a good opportunity for Tim Paine and Justin Langer to turn it around, I think they will.”

Waugh, 53, played 168 Tests for Australia and captained the side from 1999 until his retirement in 2004. Unlike most, he left the game behind when he retired. Actively involved in a number of charities, next month he sets off on a six-day, 700km road trip with the likes of Adam Goodes and Anna Meares to raise money for his medical charity.

People can donate at www.captainsride.com.au