I’ve played a bit of cricket. Probably as much as almost anyone on here and I’ve even played against MAL. I state this merely to establish that I’ve played across the decades where the game transitioned from respecting your opponents to sledging them wherever possible. To show how out of touch I was, I can honestly say I rarely sledged an opponent and was rarely sledged in return. As a frequent captain and coach, I can say that my teams also rarely sledged opponents and they also knew their spot in the team was in jeopardy if they didn’t respect the umpire’s decision.
I’m obviously retired from playing cricket now and it’s probably just as well, as those principles probably wouldn’t survive in today’s cricket environment. While they were being applied, it surprisingly didn’t seem to affect our success rate at all. This remained pretty healthy.
The catalyst for this sermon was a discussion on 5AA about sledging. I have to say that I’m not a big fan of Chris McDermott, although I’m sure he has many and I certainly admired the way he played footy. His argument, strongly put and shared by many, was that the Australian cricket team had lost its ‘mojo’. That is, it was losing because they were too restrained by politeness and Australia played better when it sledged the opposition mercilessly. The proof of this was the result in the Perth test.
Now, given my first paragraph, you would understand that I didn’t agree with this. I had a strange theory that we used to win all the time because we had Hayden, Langer, Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist, etc, etc. My theory is that we were now losing because we didn’t have Hayden, Langer, Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist, etc, etc.
There’s no way of proving who is right with this, although my theory says that the players I’ve mentioned could afford to sledge, because their skill was superior to the opposition. Besides, I was (strangely) overlooked when they were picking the Australian Test teams, so I rightly felt constrained to keep my theories to myself.
I have a question, though, Chris. You say Australia rediscovered their ‘mojo’ in Perth by deciding to get back to what works – ‘in your face’ sledging. Presumably they were then emboldened to continue this in Melbourne. What happened, mate?
Perhaps they just weren’t as good as the opposition. Perhaps sledging hasn’t got anything to do with it.
I hasten to finish by sharing the good side of on-field banter. My favourite was when my team were being destroyed by a very good, very, very quick opposition fast bowler. Our number 11 walked to the wicket at a score of something like 9/55 or thereabouts, to be welcomed by the fast bowler with words to the effect that our number 11’s visit would be extremely short. I would have kept quiet in such circumstances, but our number 11 wasn’t short of a word. His quick rejoinder was to raise his bat and tell the bowler “I'll let my bat do the talking”.
He was bowled, shouldering arms, next ball.
I said I was rarely sledged, because I actually was in my last game. I was ‘filling in’, as you do, in a B Grade game, batting 11 and somewhat out of my depth at that stage, being just slightly over my best playing weight and just slightly (a decade or so) older than the next oldest player.
I took guard, whereupon one of the closer fielders immediately quipped “Hello, Dr W G Grace”.
My reply was to advise him that he was obviously referring to my ability, not my weight or age.
Unfortunately, I thought of that reply about 48 hours later. All I did at the time was to share the joke and proceed to be caught behind soon after for not many. Well, not any, actually.
