If I wander into the forest of corporate bullshit here, forgive me. I’ve lived amongst the buzzword trees and hyperbole weeds for two decades and sometimes it’s hard to stop myself.

In anticipation of tonight’s screening of Aussie Vs The-World part 2, GK has me churning this idea of team unity and spirit over in my head, and how significant a factor it is in the performance we see on the park from a group of highly talented but globally fractured World XI players.

Many management gurus (cross your legs and hum please) will tell you, by way of rehashing Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 theory, that there are several stages to establishing a highly successful team….

(1) getting to know each other (forming),
(2) fighting for leadership status and sticking knives in backs, (storming),
(3) getting on with the job and having a laugh and a beer (norming)
(4) a well oiled machine, strategically aware of why it exists (performing)

If I (with as much objectivity as I can muster) look at Michael Vaughan’s Ashes squad, I have to place that team into category 4. Indicators were everywhere. Staunch defence of all team members to the outside world. Different players rising to the occasion in different matches. Smiles! Relaxed yet decisive leadership. And above all, a piquant knowledge of the pot of gold awaiting at the end of a 5 match rainbow. Each player was strategically aware of their role in the team.

Compare this to Pollock’s band of merry men and, for the sake of this spiel, forget the national identity theme for a moment. In Tuckman’s model, the World XI can by definition only be at stage 1 or 2. They barely know each other as team-mates and will be uncertain of their role, status and leadership responsibilities. All of the players are ‘senior members’ of their national squads but what is the senior player group in this World XI? Everyone?

I’ve no doubt that despite woeful batting, the World XI wants to win, but does the team dynamic enable it to perform as a unit, and if not, how quickly can the team progress into an equation where the sum of its parts equals the total of its talent pool?

And what strategic objective can the World XI possibly have. They are two ODI’s and a test away from disbanding, unlikely to be ever reunited in the same shape and form as they are now.

England’s strategic objective was to end 2 decades of humiliation. Australia’s now is to reassert their claim to world dominance, visibly demonstrated by the thirty minute hug that endured after Wednesday night’s victory. But the World XI? I don’t see how there can be a single strategic vision that can develop the team to a higher count in Tuckman’s model. And all things being equal, that points to a similar result tonight.

I clearly failed to avoid the corporate bullshit trap.