On Sledging
10/12/09 11:23
Slow passages in play during a Test match are prone to bring forth remarks from commentators that merit a little musing on the morning walk.Take, for example, the remark attributed to Michael Holding by West Indian commentator Fazeer Mohammed that the West Indian line-up of the late seventies didn't engage in sledging.
The initial response would be they didn't sledge because they didn't need to, but I think things go deeper than that.
There is more than one way to skin a cat, and just because you've removed the verbal aspect that doesn't mean you're looking at a side that lacks menace and serious intent.
Looking at the classic bowling line-up of Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft the batsman would have plenty to worry about without taking the odd sledge into account.
Look at the individuals involved....
Start with Andy Roberts the stone-faced assassin with two quite separate and equally lethal bouncers, and contrast him with Michael Whispering Death Holding, the stealth killer of the outfit.
Then, at first and second change you've got Joel Garner banging the ball in short from about ten feet in the air and Colin Croft going wide on the return crease and spearing the ball in at your upper torso.
With a line up like that you probably don't have to sledge, but things go a bit deeper than that.
Consider, for a start, the likelihood that Clive Lloyd, as he analysed the lessons learned on the West Indies 1975-76 tour of Australia, considered sledging and probably dismissed the idea as more or less pointless.
For a start, Lloyd never struck me as the sledging type, but again I suspect there's a further point. As an astute strategist who concentrated on developing his own side's strengths Lloyd probably realised that there's not much point in engaging the enemy on one of his strong points.
After all, when it comes to sledging it has generally been a case of Australia first, daylight second.
Then, of course, there's the question of what actually constitutes sledging.
On-field banter has probably been part of the game since W.G. grace was in short pants, and I'd defy anyone to draw a definitive line between encouraging your team mates and an unfavourable assessment of the opposition batsman's technical prowess.
I mean, you could, but as soon as you did there'd be some smart cookie finding a way around it.
Take, for example, the case where a bouncer has just about removed the batsman's head and the 'keeper remarks that someone must be wearing his brown jockettes today. Sledging? Intimidation? Or a blunt assessment of the batsman's probable internal state?
From their earliest days in the Under-12s kids are encouraged to 'talk up' their team mates in the field, it's probably no surprise to learn that many junior coaches have a definite role allocated to 'the talk man'.
If you can find the right kid, he's worth his weight in gold.
They don't always know when to stop, of course.
At the Queensland Primary Schools' Carnival in 1992 my attention was drawn to the fact that my designated talk man who'd been assigned twelfth man duties that day, was carrying out his regular role from the fine leg boundary.
Given the fact that Under 12 kids aren't the most imaginative creatures on Earth, the content of the on-field 'talk up' tends to become more than a little repetitive.
Middle stump’s having a party, let’s crash it! might have a certain je ne sais quoi the first time you hear it, but it gets a bit ordinary after the umpteenth iteration.
But then, so did Bowled, Warner.
And when the kids make their transition into the adult ranks they learn pretty quickly that anyone who's too thin-skinned isn't going to last very long. That's the case in Australia, anyway, and I'd be surprised if the same thing wasn't true to some extent throughout the rest of the cricketing world.
And if yer actual sledging isn't quite as prevalent in other countries they've probably got their own versions of sharp practice deeply ingrained in their own cricketing culture.
While that classic West Indian line-up might not have been prone to sledge, there's very little doubt that some of their successors were.
Cries of Hit the coward, for example, might be written off as non-sledges due to lack of expletive content, but there's no doubt that they're intended to intimidate, and I can't help recalling a certain imbroglio between Steve Waugh and Curtley Ambrose in the West Indies in 1995.
Don't cuss me, man might be fair enough, but in a case where the remarks that were found to be offensive were a fairly blunt response to what seemed awfully like an officially malevolent glare you're not talking about a one-way street.
No, the West Indies team under Clive Lloyd mightn't have sledged, but I think that was one element in a very carefully constructed strategy that went as far as an insistence on the team blazer when players were in airport departure lounges.
At a time when Australian cricketers wore more or less what they liked in transit between venues, there was no way you could describe the West Indian side as quietly inconspicuous.
On the field, however, it was very much a case of careful tweaking to emphasise West Indian strengths and minimise the few weaknesses that anybody managed to identify.
But that's another kettle of fish.
The initial response would be they didn't sledge because they didn't need to, but I think things go deeper than that.
There is more than one way to skin a cat, and just because you've removed the verbal aspect that doesn't mean you're looking at a side that lacks menace and serious intent.
Looking at the classic bowling line-up of Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft the batsman would have plenty to worry about without taking the odd sledge into account.
Look at the individuals involved....
Start with Andy Roberts the stone-faced assassin with two quite separate and equally lethal bouncers, and contrast him with Michael Whispering Death Holding, the stealth killer of the outfit.
Then, at first and second change you've got Joel Garner banging the ball in short from about ten feet in the air and Colin Croft going wide on the return crease and spearing the ball in at your upper torso.
With a line up like that you probably don't have to sledge, but things go a bit deeper than that.
Consider, for a start, the likelihood that Clive Lloyd, as he analysed the lessons learned on the West Indies 1975-76 tour of Australia, considered sledging and probably dismissed the idea as more or less pointless.
For a start, Lloyd never struck me as the sledging type, but again I suspect there's a further point. As an astute strategist who concentrated on developing his own side's strengths Lloyd probably realised that there's not much point in engaging the enemy on one of his strong points.
After all, when it comes to sledging it has generally been a case of Australia first, daylight second.
Then, of course, there's the question of what actually constitutes sledging.
On-field banter has probably been part of the game since W.G. grace was in short pants, and I'd defy anyone to draw a definitive line between encouraging your team mates and an unfavourable assessment of the opposition batsman's technical prowess.
I mean, you could, but as soon as you did there'd be some smart cookie finding a way around it.
Take, for example, the case where a bouncer has just about removed the batsman's head and the 'keeper remarks that someone must be wearing his brown jockettes today. Sledging? Intimidation? Or a blunt assessment of the batsman's probable internal state?
From their earliest days in the Under-12s kids are encouraged to 'talk up' their team mates in the field, it's probably no surprise to learn that many junior coaches have a definite role allocated to 'the talk man'.
If you can find the right kid, he's worth his weight in gold.
They don't always know when to stop, of course.
At the Queensland Primary Schools' Carnival in 1992 my attention was drawn to the fact that my designated talk man who'd been assigned twelfth man duties that day, was carrying out his regular role from the fine leg boundary.
Given the fact that Under 12 kids aren't the most imaginative creatures on Earth, the content of the on-field 'talk up' tends to become more than a little repetitive.
Middle stump’s having a party, let’s crash it! might have a certain je ne sais quoi the first time you hear it, but it gets a bit ordinary after the umpteenth iteration.
But then, so did Bowled, Warner.
And when the kids make their transition into the adult ranks they learn pretty quickly that anyone who's too thin-skinned isn't going to last very long. That's the case in Australia, anyway, and I'd be surprised if the same thing wasn't true to some extent throughout the rest of the cricketing world.
And if yer actual sledging isn't quite as prevalent in other countries they've probably got their own versions of sharp practice deeply ingrained in their own cricketing culture.
While that classic West Indian line-up might not have been prone to sledge, there's very little doubt that some of their successors were.
Cries of Hit the coward, for example, might be written off as non-sledges due to lack of expletive content, but there's no doubt that they're intended to intimidate, and I can't help recalling a certain imbroglio between Steve Waugh and Curtley Ambrose in the West Indies in 1995.
Don't cuss me, man might be fair enough, but in a case where the remarks that were found to be offensive were a fairly blunt response to what seemed awfully like an officially malevolent glare you're not talking about a one-way street.
No, the West Indies team under Clive Lloyd mightn't have sledged, but I think that was one element in a very carefully constructed strategy that went as far as an insistence on the team blazer when players were in airport departure lounges.
At a time when Australian cricketers wore more or less what they liked in transit between venues, there was no way you could describe the West Indian side as quietly inconspicuous.
On the field, however, it was very much a case of careful tweaking to emphasise West Indian strengths and minimise the few weaknesses that anybody managed to identify.
But that's another kettle of fish.