"Aura", "class", "x-factor": all names we give to the special individual performance or distinctive sporting team, to capture an essence we struggle to put our finger on, yet that is unmistakably present. Lately they have been joined by a new vogue word, "culture", a sort of upwardly mobile, perhaps more professional, version of what would once have been called "team spirit". In cricket it aims to put a name to the community created by the members of a team that makes them hard to beat - although it is more often defined in the negative - a weakness identified as the outcome of a "poor culture". The word was used 15 times in the Argus review in the context of it being "poor" and needing to "improve".
What are the qualities of a "good" sporting team culture?
In my experience, positive cultures have always been defined by the willingness of players to sacrifice their own personal pride, ego and attitude for the betterment of the greater team performance. It is understood that there will be conflicts between the interests of the individual and the collective, but also that in these cases there can only be one winner, and that a course once decided will be followed. Triumphs are shared; mistakes are met without blame but with an understanding that they will be rectified with no excuse offered. Talent and skill, of course, are still the non-negotiables. But outside of the most gifted teams, there will always be a need to extract more than the sum of the parts.
Not every sport places the same emphasis on inner cohesion. It's no fluke that it was football that produced the most famous counter to the cult of culture, the remark by Spurs' Steve Archibald that "team spirit is a chimera glimpsed in a moment of victory". It has been proven in multiple studies that the greatest determinate of success in the English Premier League is money. It is a game constructed around the excelling of individual genius, mainly because the currency of scoring is so high: a single flash of brilliance can change everything, and the souls most capable of these trade at extraordinary premiums.
It can, though, be argued that games might be won by such, but dynasties are built around men of the integrity and willingness of a Giggs or a Neville.
How different is cricket? What is good for the individual generally is good for the team. A double-hundred goes a long way to setting up a game. A destructive spell of bowling more so. But goals do diverge, often enough for it to matter. The term "pole hunting" is heard when bowlers search for wickets with miracle deliveries rather than serve the team end of persevering with patience and accuracy to complement the bowler from the other end.
A batsman knows when his partner is with him - it is in the eyes. Failures of concentration and/or of trust are poison to partnerships. Cricket is a long-duration sport - a large amount of time is spent uninvolved and inactive in the game. Behaviours during these periods count as well. That is not to say traits such as selfishness are not valued in good teams - it is just they are displayed as a hunger and desire for collective, not personal, glory.
Culture is also generally something that does not need to be articulated: it is a common bond of expectations and a set of standards that goes beyond what those who try to define it mount on the dressing-room wall before a season starts. It is defined not by words but by deeds, although these might not be obvious. In his county diary, On and Off the Field, Ed Smith suggested that it stemmed from the unremembered acts of love and kindness. The "tap on the shoulder that says more than words, staying on at the bar when you are bored but one of your team-mates is down and lonely; not giving pub talk to players out of form; sitting on the balcony when you are out - not because you have been told to, but because you are sharing the journey of the guys out there."
Ed Cowan writes for ESPN Cricinfo and is and the author of In The Firing Line.