Cricket: The problem with the Australian Line of Control

Sharda Ugra in Cricinfo


Don't mean to be intemperate or rude or politically incorrect, but why is it that whenever there is an epic-proportion bust-up in international cricket, Australians are almost always involved?

Let's not think Dennis Lillee-Javed Miandad 1981. A rough 21st century brawl-recall will do.

Going backwards from the 2018 Warner-De Kock stairwell skirmish, you meet Josh Hazlewood giving umpire Ranmore Martinesz and New Zealand batsman Corey Anderson a mouthful in Christchurch, 2016.

In 2015, there's Warner and Rohit Sharma having a verbal stoush over an overthrow in a tri-series.

In 2014, Mitchell Starc and Kieron Pollard are involved in a ghastly altercation during the IPL.

In 2013, Warner and South African keeper Thami Tsolekile are ticked off over an incident in an A Test in Pretoria.

Only a few months later, Australian captain Michael Clarke is heard telling James Anderson on air, "Get ready for a broken f**** arm."

In 2010, Mitchell Johnson gets stuck into Scott Styris during an ODI in Napier.

The 2017 Ashes was marked by umpire Aleem Dar standing between James Anderson and Steven Smith in Adelaide, if only to stop the first punch from landing. There were debates over whether stump mikes should be turned down to prevent exchanges between adult men reaching the ears of children. We are not referring to the haw-haw "not even the best cricketer in your family, mate" banter, which has many genuine moments of mirth and forms part of the game's folklore. These are cricket's dramas on the other side of ugly, imprinted into the brains of kids as "normal" on-field behaviour, and last for weeks, full of whisper campaigns, leakages, ICC hearings and sentences.

Bored yet? Annoyed even? Then don't bother going back to Lehmann v Sri Lanka 2002, or McGrath v Sarwan 2003. Yes, let's set aside the Warner v Root walkabout, Harbhajan v Symonds, and even Virat Kohli's last two episodes: the 2014-15 send-offs, and the dramatics over Smith's 2017 "brain fade".


----- Also read


Smith and Lehmann culpable in Warner incident - Ian Chappell

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Stand back from the institutional defence that "David Warner has not been pulled up for any ICC code violation for the last three years and the demerits points scorecard reads South Africa six, Australia two." No need to go into a stats breakdown of how many times out of ten Australian cricketers get involved in cricketing boilovers or reducing to the "the other guys started it" argument. What cricket must deal with is the fact that the Australian cricket team may have turned what used to be spontaneous sporting combustion into their version of Tactic 2.0. Pre-meditated toxic confrontation, a drama scripted between balls.

Other countries manage to play tense, competitive cricket without lapsing into uber-nastiness. Those contests have their heated moments (James Anderson and Ravindra Jadeja, go stand in the corner), but they are not the template for every series between the sides. The cricket still dominates public memory, not the arguments and the controversy. Put Australia on one side of the contest and it's not quite the same.

Throughout its colourful and rich history, Australian cricket has offered us some of the game's most magnificent qualities: competitiveness, daring, energy, positivity. For the better part of the last two decades, they were the gold standard for the game. Yet, slowly, during the same period, so many major series featuring the Aussies has begun to produce an overheated, eventually absurd subplot. In which they usually claim to be the victims, while often being deliberate, and even skillful agent provocateurs.

Unseemly and juvenile conduct is then gift-wrapped into convenient catchphrases: "playing hard but fair" and "not crossing the Line". And what a shapeshifter of a Line it is: imaginary, planted into quicksand, travelling where and when it suits those who claim to own it. To be fair, every cricket team claims ownership of the Line too - usually when they have committed a transgression. On Wednesday, Ottis Gibson described the situation quite poetically: "They are saying they didn't cross the line, but where is the line, who sets the line, where did the line come from? When you are saying you didn't cross the line but we didn't cross the line, you went very close to the line whose line is it?" Now that Sledging is trademarked Australian, no surprise that the team considers themselves rightful rulers of the Line and chooses to dictate what lies on either side.Green and gold are the hottest colours: if verbals are flying, Aussies might be in the vicinity Getty Images

Not so long ago, race and culture were safely on this side of the Line and could be tapped into to mentally "disintegrate" opposition. The players, it is hoped, have moved on from calling each other "curry-munchers", "terrorist", "monkeys". But the Warner-de Kock incident now informs us that "personal" is out of the question and that "family" aka wives or significant others, are on the far side of the Line, off limits. It is not certain if that means only Australian families, or does it apply to the other cricketers' families too? What happens to "your wife, my kids"? And what is the exact definition of personal? Surely, private parts are personal? But male or female? Or both? Or do only Australian cricketers know? Such righteousness from the prime offender can only invite ridicule. England captain Nasser Hussain once called this Australian cricket's habit of "preaching". Except no one is interested in following this gospel.

In other sports around the world, Australian athletes are admired for their titanium-strength fighting qualities. Barring a few, recent tennis brats, generations between Rod Laver and Pat Rafter showed us skill with grace. Whatever their personal issues, Australian swimmers don't expend energy dissing their rivals. There are more than a few Aussie rugby players who demonstrate what playing hard and fair really means. Then how and why does its cricket team unfailingly produce such habitual, perpetual, collective bad conduct? Of the kind they wouldn't want anyone's children indulging in on a playground?

Cricket "verbals" are said to form a part of the Australian game, even at club level. Gideon Haigh called it "just sound effects almost like the sound of bat on ball."

During a 2013 research study around multiculturalism in Australian cricket, some newly arrived Asian immigrants told me they were staggered by the level of sledging in grade cricket. "Even umpires get sledged," one said. The use of fruity language in local cricket is common, but sledging umpires is not. Why, even Australia's own Usman Khawaja told the Player's Voice website in October 2017 that as a junior, "Getting sledged by opposition players and their parents was the norm when I watched the Aussie team, I saw men who were hard-nosed, confident, almost brutish. The same type of men who would sledge me about my heritage growing up." He then went on to say that the situation had improved on the ground and that Australian cricket was changing, becoming more inclusive.

Who knows how long meaningful change in player behaviour will take to get to the top in Australia? Never mind fixing what is an endemic problem, even accepting that it exists is going to be tough - because Australian cricket has turned the profane into their sacred creed. 

The case for sledging

Sam Perry in Cricinfo

Around a decade ago a 20-year-old man walked to a suburban wicket with his team in a precarious position. The previous week they had conceded a glut of runs to a rampaging opposition that included a recently discarded international player. In a message to selectors and anyone else who wanted to listen, the deposed veteran made a score that dropped jaws.

And so the 20-year-old strode to the crease, his team 40 for 4 in reply. Two overs remained before lunch. Slightly shaking but presenting the bravest face possible, he asked for centre. In an attempt at familiarity, he addressed the umpire by name. It was a disastrous overcompensation, seized upon gleefully.

"Do you know him, mate?" offered the point fieldsman. Chuckles ensued from those in earshot. The batsman glanced behind him to see four slips waiting. Each stared, stony-faced, directly back. Two had arms folded, two had hands behind their backs, like policemen strolling their beat. Robocop wraparound sunglasses were the day's fashion, as was the gnashing of chewing gum. The batsman probably shouldn't have addressed the umpire by name. It played on his mind.

"Rod, do you know this bloke?" came the follow-up from first slip. It was the veteran record-breaker, speaking to the umpire, capitalising on the moment. All heads turned to the man in white, now a central character in the contrived pantomime. Rod chuckled. "Nope!" he replied, followed by more laughter. A ball hadn't yet been bowled.

The veteran continued, "Mate, what's going on with your socks?" Now we had a problem. Unbeknown to the batsman, he had tucked his socks into his pants before affixing his pads. "Is this Under-12s? Rod, am I playing Under-12s?" Guffaws followed from all but the already humiliated batsman. He was out for 5, caught at gully off the last ball before lunch.

Sledging has utility and that's primarily why it exists. While few of us ever will, were we to step into the private confines of a professional dressing room, we would likely find believers. You won't hear this publicly, though, as the word itself has become villainous to cricketing morality. Very few are willing to openly defend sledging, though many privately believe in its value. Pragmatism often trumps principle.

So in this Trumpian world, perhaps it's time to air the views of a silent majority. Maybe sledging is effective. Maybe sledging makes a difference. Maybe sledging helps teams win.

We accept that cricket is a mental game, and let's face it, the majority of us cannot control ourselves very well mentally

Contrary to popular conception, sledging is rarely a series of witty one-liners of the sort found in internet listicles. Nor is it often outright verbal abuse. In large part it's merely a stream of hushed expletives, passive-aggressive body language, conversations between team-mates, and assorted noises, the worst of which is laughter.

We accept that cricket is a mental game, and let's face it, the majority of us cannot control ourselves very well mentally. We are not purveyors of unadulterated Zen and focused positivity. We are mostly flawed individuals, who carry our nerves, insecurities and awareness of weakness into most of life's important moments. We all learned at an early age that humiliation, embarrassment, and feelings of not belonging compromise our confidence. Ergo, if you accept that confidence is critical to cricketing success, then isn't it the opposition's imperative to weaken it?

Which brings us to sledging's ethical considerations. Among the many and overlapping guiding principles for a player's behaviour, particularly at the professional level, standing as tall as any is this: "What will help us win?" It's here that we confront sledging's mythical line. For most, the line is simply about what you can get away with. Or as Nathan Lyon described it, "We try to head-butt the line." If there is an upside or edge to be exploited in pursuit of victory, aren't players arguably justified in doing so? When it comes to sledging, for many the question is less "Is this right?", more "Will this work?"

Of course, it doesn't always work. Some personalities thrive under sledging, while others are immune. But these are rare birds. It's more likely than not that sledging hurts us. If we succeed, we do so in spite of it and not because of it. And so in our new, Trump-led world, where the prevailing doctrines seem to be less about honour and more about winning, it is fitting to view sledging as a viable tool in the arsenals of fielding sides. No one will say so, mind.
Beyond its capacity to mentally disrupt the opposition, in some countries sledging seemingly has a cultural allure too. You don't have to travel far on YouTube to witness the bipartisan adoration for former Australian prime minister Paul Keating, whose ability to deliver withering verbal takedowns and comebacks is arguably without peer. He is adored for his capacity to verbally undermine his opposition, and it's understandable that many may seek to emulate that when it comes to facing opponents of their own.

This potent yet fragile tool for psychological disruption remains as alive as ever. Ask any batsman whether they'd prefer to be sledged when they bat or not, and the honest answer will be no. And it is for this reason that they will engage in sledging themselves when fielding. While many might express a glib, deep-voiced indifference to "chat", we would all much prefer friendly, welcoming, encouraging environs when out in the middle. The reality, however sad or unethical, is that sledging usually makes one's innings more difficult. So long as professional pragmatism and the doctrine of winning prevails, so will sledging, whether publicly acknowledged or not.

Might cricket ban close-in fielders some day?

Michael Jeh in Cricinfo


Following Matt Renshaw's concussion injury, a respected cricket writer posed the question: will we ever get to the point where short leg, bat pad and silly mid-off are banned in international cricket?

In junior cricket in Australia that is already the case. I'm not sure if it is the same in places like India, where the art of spin bowling (and batting against it) will be poorer for such rules. More realistically, given the litigious climate we inhabit, can a fielder refuse the captain's instructions to field in a position that compromises his or her safety? Especially in professional cricket, where livelihoods are at stake, what are the health and safety implications of deliberately putting an employee in a dangerous position, knowing full well that serious injury is a possible outcome?

Barely 40 years on from when Tony Greig wore a motorcycle helmet while batting, it is almost as rare to now see a first-class cricketer batting in a hat or cap.

I have seen the helmet policy change radically - from wearing one being optional, to having to sign an indemnity form if you didn't wear one, to it now being a case of "no helmet, no play" at my local cricket club. This transformation has taken place in the time it has taken my son to progress from Under-8s to U-13s, accelerated no doubt by the Phillip Hughes accident (even though Hughes was wearing a helmet at the time).

In first-class cricket, the rules are so ridiculous that you are allowed to bat in a cap, but if you wear a helmet, it has to meet certain design specs.


Can a fielder refuse the captain's instructions to field in a position that compromises his or her safety?

I remain convinced that this blind faith in helmets is breeding a generation of cricketers who are sometimes technically inept, attempting to pull off the front foot instead of getting inside the line of the ball, or trying to play shots when ducking may have been wiser. In the last two weeks, at least four international batsmen have been hit in the head in Australia and New Zealand. Musfiqur Rahim was the most serious of these cases.

Even bizarre accidents can sometimes be predictable. Umpiring in an U-9 game recently, I refused to allow a batsman to face up because he was not wearing gloves. The opposition coach (also a parent) took exception to my decision, arguing that his son was prepared to take the risk. My counter-argument was that I was not prepared to put my fielders at risk if the bat flew from his hand on a hot, sweaty Brisbane morning. The acid burn of the wrath I incurred hurts less today as I view the replay of Peter Nevill's injury in the Big Bash.

A few years ago Queensland Cricket, in a noble but futile attempt to improve the "spirit of cricket" on the grade-cricket scene, ran a workshop where every captain of every club in every grade was forced to attend an event that tried to encourage a less abrasive, more sportsmanlike atmosphere. If a captain did not attend this workshop, his team lost points if he subsequently captained that season.

On the night in question, when each group was given a different hypothetical situation to mull over (for example: what do you do if an overnight not-out batsman turned up ten minutes late the next day because he was tending to his sick child?) I raised the issue of bowlers and fielders making threats against the batsman along the lines of "I'm going to f***ing kill you." My point was that even if it was not meant literally but taken to signal they were going to bowl aggressively at the batsman's body, once those words were said, if the batsman was actually killed (or badly injured), would there be a case to answer for premeditated assault occasioning bodily harm or worse? Would witnesses (fielders, umpires, non-striker) be asked to testify, under oath, as to whether they actually heard that threat being made, regardless of whether they thought it was meant literally or not?



Gautam Gambhir leaps to avoid getting hit by a shot from Michael Clarke in Delhi, 2008 © AFP


On hearing my question, the first-grade captain of another club stood up in disgust and said that if the evening was going to descend into complete farce with questions of this nature, he was taking leave forthwith. And that was the general consensus in the room: ridiculous question, it will never happen, can we move on to more realistic scenarios please? The hypothetical question I posed was never addressed. Many in the room thought I had pushed credibility too far.

Sadly, vindication is often a dish served cold, but it has a sour aftertaste. It wasn't long before we had the coronial inquest into the death of Hughes, and many of those same questions were posed by the coroner, Michael Barnes. We never quite got to the bottom of the matter, but the coroner was sufficiently unconvinced to note: "The repeated denials of any sledging having occurred in the game in which Phillip Hughes was injured were difficult to accept. Hopefully the focus on this unsavoury aspect of the incident may cause those who claim to love the game to reflect upon whether the practice of sledging is worthy of its participants. An outsider is left to wonder why such a beautiful game would need such an ugly underside."

So what's next? Players (employees) taking legal action against selectors for unfair recruitment policies? Suing your cricket board for making you play while injured? Been there, done that, thanks Nathan Bracken!

Can a batsman who has scored more runs in first-class cricket (Callum Ferguson, for example) make a case for unfair dismissal or discrimination if they jettison him after just one Test for an X-factor cricketer (Nic Maddinson) whose numbers don't quite match up and who is given three Tests? Ridiculous? Yes. Possible? Yes.

No bat pad? No leg slip? It might be a bridge too far. It will change the face of cricket forever, of course. But it won't be the first time that an outlandish suggestion morphs into an everyday reality.

On Sledging - Anderson England's guilty pleasure

There is an uncomfortable recognition that the beauty of James Anderson's cricket comes with a professionalism that has been taken to the limits but weak umpiring has to share the blame

David Hopps in Cricinfo

As James Anderson prepares to face an ICC enquiry into his alleged misconduct during the Trent Bridge Test, it is hard to suppress a feeling of frustration about how this wonderful fast bowler has been allowed to become England's guilty pleasure.

Anderson is close to the apex of a fulfilling career, only 12 more wickets needed to draw equal with Ian Botham as England's leading Test wicket-taker. He is championed in England as a true craftsman among fast bowlers, a manipulator of a cricket ball who deserves to stand alongside the best.

And yet, this faith in his bowling purity sits uneasily with a sullied reputation; a player now well known to all but the most casual follower of the game as one of the most ingrained sledgers around and, a natural development, who allegedly has now tipped over into the pushing of Ravindra Jadeja as well. It does not take long to find an opponent, or a past opponent, who says there is nobody worse - even if they then admit it is a crowded field. It should never have come to this.

This then is England's guilty pleasure: on one side, the shy craftsman who became one of the finest fast bowlers in the world; on the other, the Burnley Lip, whose abuse of opponents has been incessant for many years. Many in the game will tell you it doesn't matter a jot. It does. Cricket has a problem - and it needs to deal with it before everybody starts to grow Luis Suarez fangs.

It is important to observe - and his captain, Alastair Cook, was shrewd enough to do so from the start - that the ICC code of conduct commissioner, Gordon Lewis, a retired Australian judge, has been appointed to judge one specific incident at Trent Bridge, about which the details remain at issue, and not to pass opinion on a verbally-strewn career.

The ICC's judgment, in the simplest terms, will determine whether Anderson is banned from his home Test at Old Trafford next week, and perhaps for the rest of the series. For many, that outcome is all that matters. It might swing a Test series towards India in the process, although the suggestion that this is India's reasoning is overly cynical.

This is not a tactic; this is a campaign. And once Lewis makes his ruling, we will wait to discover if it is the first campaign of many or if Anderson is to be its sole victim. A trophy killing for India's mantelpiece.

Anderson's fate will be determined on whether video evidence really does exist - India say so, but they might be bluffing - and on the dubious testimony of witnesses about Who Pushed Who When, Who Said What To Whom, all of which tittle-tattle should be enough to make Lewis wonder whether he should be doing better things with his life.

Cricket's fate will take longer to determine. What we may also be experiencing is the start of India agitation against persistent on-field abuse, a habit resented for its disrespect and occasionally because of its implied threat of physical violence. The reality is that only India is empowered to change the nature of the game - to say "we will not play this way". What is less unclear is whether it has the will to try to transform the way the game is played - or whether perhaps Lewis' ruling will carry wider encouragement for cricket to clean up its act.

We may know a lot more about the repercussions by Christmas. If India, and in particular their captain MS Dhoni, have taken a stand against what they regard as Anderson's excess, how will they respond when India pitch up for a Test series in Australia? They have acted independently of the umpires and match referees once. If Lewis rules in their favour, will they feel obliged to do it again?

If Mitchell Johnson snarls from underneath his vaudevillian moustache, will India be consistent and immediately lay a charge with the ICC? If David Warner yaps like a dog for much of a session, as he once stupidly did to irritate Faf du Plessis, will another charge be laid? If Shane Watson adds some sly words of his own, will three Australians be in the dock?

	Was Ajinkya Rahane's melodramatic response at the end of day four a sign of India's zero tolerance approach to verbal abuse? © Getty Images  Enlarge

Anderson's alleged push of Jadeja is presented as the catalyst for the complaint, but it was his reputation as a serial sledger that made Dhoni so anxious to pursue it. Anderson was charged because he has form - the alleged push was just a chance to get even. And physical contact, incidentally, is not necessarily needed to win a case. There is plenty in the ICC Code of Conduct that pretends to punish verbal abuse. It is just that nobody ever presses charges.

While England is invited to regard Anderson as a guilty pleasure, international umpires and the ICC must be feeling nervous. If India is embarking upon an attempted clean up, the umpires will need to intervene in a manner they have not seen fit to do for years. If they do, it will be long overdue. What we have at the moment is a sham.

So much in cricket is disingenuous. The Spirit of Cricket has become a widely-ridiculed moral salad dressing on a game where umpires allow verbal aggression to go unchecked in the misguided belief that they are permitting the vital confrontational elements that enhance the game at the highest level. As long as the invective isn't aimed at them, as long as nobody actually makes physical contact, they are only concerned with ensuring the public does not know too much.

Most of us - at whatever level we play the game - relish a clever sledge, most of us permit a physically-straining fast bowler a display of frustration, most of us don't mind a bit of backchat, but umpires have utterly failed in their duty to check the incessant boorish behaviour that has now become regarded as just a daily reality. Where were they when Anderson indulged in his 30-metre rant at Jadeja as the players walked off for tea? Where is the dividing line? Is everything acceptable unless you actually push someone? It is time we were honestly told.

Instead, we have Anderson, the essentially gentle guy trying to play tough; the diffident figure who has been told by coaches to become more aggressive; the man who could barely spit out a sentence in press conferences at the start of his career, transformed into a venomous on-field malcontent; a natural leader of no-one proudly bowling more Test overs than anyone in the world as he forever strives to be the Leader of the Attack; a talented, likeable lad who has been gradually lulled by this failure of umpires and administrators to rule and has developed, in his immense desire to win Tests for England, into a twisted, nastier on-field personality than he really is.

Considering all the jokes about his grumpiness - his best mate, Graeme Swann, loves to joke that it takes a couple of beers to cheer him up - this role play does not seem to have made him very happy.

As England celebrated an overwhelming victory at the Ageas Bowl, Anderson's hugs with his team-mates seemed slightly troubled. A few minutes later, he was collecting another magnum of champagne, another man-of-the-match award logged. He had produced his finest all-round performance for a year, a display summoned out of adversity, adversity not just for himself, but for his captain, Alastair Cook, and indeed the entire England Test set-up.

	While we cherish Anderson's skill, we prefer to be spared a truth. The abuse has become the sourness we would rather not recognise

It was a pleasure to see Anderson and Stuart Broad remembering once again how to play with joy - "play with the happiness of your first Test," the coach, Peter Moores had urged them as he sought to arrest England's worst run for 20 years, and England's senior players, as one, had released the yoke from their back. England kept their lips buttoned - and won by a country mile.

But on the one occasion that Anderson allowed himself some backchat - a sentence or two to Ajinkya Rahaneat the end of the fourth day - the response from Rahane was so melodramatic that India's zero tolerance policy was abundantly clear. Was this personal animosity, a tactical manoeuvre ahead of the hearing or further proof a long-term attempt to change the nature of the game?

Anderson's post-match interviews, as ever, were conducted in that vulnerable, polite, halting style. It is the Anderson that England wish to celebrate: the self-effacing, bashful sportsman who has succeeded in a physically-demanding, confrontational job. We would rather dwell on his 371 Test wickets and not wonder about his tally of C words when the game gets tough.

His newly-adopted beard looks like a defence mechanism against the uproar surrounding him. When he was asked after the match if he was confident about the outcome of the hearing, his "don't know" response sounded abashed. There was no petulant strut, no words of defiance, just a world-class player trapped in a behavioural mode that might be about to bring suspension.

While we cherish Anderson's skill, we prefer to be spared this truth. The abuse has become the sourness we would rather not recognise: the stain on the luxury, hand-woven carpet; the dodgy financial dealings that produce the beautiful marina; the uncomfortable recognition that the beauty of Anderson's cricket comes with a professionalism that has been taken to the limits. The alleged push has finally forced us to take notice.

We all know this: fans, team-mates, opponents, former players, umpires, administrators, all playing our part in this endless charade.

The ECB defends Anderson because it wants to win the series and protect its players; no thoughts here - not publicly anyway - of the wider picture. The ICC just bleats that the authority of the enquiry has been compromised because both Dhoni and Cook have passed comment on the situation, more concerned with systems and processes than the long-term health of the game.

Meanwhile, James Anderson, is hung out to dry.

And nobody is imposing, for all of us to see, the behavioural standards by which the game should be run.

The incredibly malleable spirit of cricket

Ed Smith in Cricinfo

	Ian Bell was out in the Trent Bridge Test against India in 2011... until he wasn't © PA Photos  Enlarge

Two British satirists, the late John Fortune and John Bird, mastered the art of explaining slippery subjects through humour. They would take a major news story and apparently merely knock it about in a light, spontaneous chat on TV. But their mischievous dialogues often took us closer to the heart of the matter than acres of self-important newsprint. (Here they are in a famous sketch from 2007 about the financial crisis)

How I would have loved them to address cricket's confusion about the "spirit of cricket". The old controversy was reignited this month when Sri Lanka "Mankaded" Jos Buttler. In the spirit of admiration rather than emulation, in this piece I imagine a conversation between the two great satirists, reflecting on Mankading and cricket's odd attitudes towards morality...

"So what is it, this spirit of cricket thing? Presumably it's about behaving with dignity out on the pitch and that kind of stuff?"

"Oh no, not really. Most players can get away with swearing at each other non-stop for five days without contravening the spirit of cricket. We don't get involved morally at that level. Better to turn a blind eye."

"You mean sledging - that's the right term isn't it? - does not contravene the spirit of cricket?"

"Not really. No, cricket tends to celebrate verbal abuse as "banter", even though it's very rarely funny. Let's put it this way. If someone sledges you all day in a Test match, the correct response in modern cricket is to go up to him at the end of play and say, "I loved the way you showed real passion about playing for your country, you seem like a champion cricketer, can I buy you a drink, as I'm sure you're a great bloke off the pitch."

"So the appropriate response to someone calling you a "f****** ****" for seven hours is to say, 'Thanks, can I buy you a beer?'"

"Exactly."

"Now I'm confused. So abusing someone who is simply doing his job is fine. But when an opponent performs a run-out, entirely within the laws of the game, he has broken the spirit of cricket, and the crowd starts booing and the whole occasion is apparently demeaned?"

"You are beginning to understand how the phrase "spirit of cricket" can be thrown around."

"But what could Sri Lanka have done to avoid the Mankading? Other than the threat of a Mankad, there's no other way of preventing a batsman setting off for a run from an advanced position is there?"

"Not really."

"And I suppose, in the heat of battle in elite sport, no one offers warnings before acting within the laws, do they?"

"Well, actually Sri Lanka offered two warnings."

"So they offered two warnings to an opponent who was - deliberately or, in this instance, accidentally - gaining an illegal advantage, and yet they still broke the spirit of cricket?"

"According to lots of people, yes."

	Everything up to and including my actions are "within the spirit of cricket". Anything I don't like about the actions of other players is "against the spirit of cricket"

"So if acting within the laws is against the spirit of cricket, what does upholding the spirit of cricket look like?"

"It's about not taking advantage of the fact that a man can lose his mind immediately before eating a slice of cake."

"I'm sorry, you've lost me."

"Back in 2011, poor Ian Bell offered a plea of temporary insanity brought about by the immediate temptation of a slice of cake. The 'spirit of cricket' jury gave him a reprieve, effectively a second life as a batsman."

"You're joking, right?"

"Deadly serious. Ian Bell made a brilliant hundred at Trent Bridge against India. But after the last ball before tea, he lapsed in concentration and assumed that the ball had crossed the boundary when in fact it hadn't. As he sauntered off for tea, the Indian team dislodged the bails, and Bell was run out. That is indeed out, according to the laws. But after an English delegation went to the Indian dressing room to complain, India retracted their appeal.

"That is, they invited Bell to bat again. Not because he wasn't out, but because they now realised that the prospect of tea had clearly clouded Bell's mind. Pundits agreed that everyone had behaved superbly. After all, how could a man be expected to remember the laws of the game when he can already sniff the aroma of chocolate cake in his nostrils?"

"This spirit of cricket is incredibly complex and malleable, isn't it? It looks as though you can explain or condemn almost anything using the rhetoric of the spirit of cricket."

"Exactly. That's the magic of it. It's all about not crossing a line."

"Whose line?"

"My line."

"What do you mean your line?"

"Everything up to and including my actions are 'within the spirit of cricket'. Anything I don't like about the actions of other players is 'against the spirit of cricket'."

"So it's possible for two people to argue for hours about someone 'crossing the line' without anyone knowing what or where the line is?"

"Exactly. That's the brilliance of the idea."

"Let's go back to the Mankading controversy. Wasn't there some background controversy about the bowling action of Senanayake, the bowler who performed the Mankading?"

"Senanayake's action has been reported as suspicious by several officials - i.e. it may be deemed a throw rather than a bowl. He will have to go to Cardiff to have his action specially filmed and analysed to see if it is legal after all."

"But isn't there a risk, when spin bowlers have to attend special testing, that they will simply bowl with a slightly different and 'more legal' action during the forensic examination?"

"What do you mean 'risk'? Basically, almost everyone who is tested eventually gets cleared. Think of the whole thing as a cooling off process."

"But what about the bowlers who don't have questionable actions? Aren't they placed at an unfair disadvantage by having to bowl in the traditional manner?"

"What do you think this is, a charity? This is cut-throat, elite sport. There is no room for sentimentality."

"Except the spirit of cricket?"

"Except for that, of course."

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The Economist on Mankading

THERE was a controversial incident during England’s one day international (ODI) against Sri Lanka at Edgbaston last night. Sachithra Senanayake, a Sri Lankan bowler, ran out Jos Buttler, England’s best ODI batsman on current form, while he was backing up (pictured). In other words, as Mr Senanayake ran in to bowl, Mr Buttler wandered down the wicket to make it easier to complete a quick run. Having spotted this (and apparently having already warned Mr Buttler twice), Mr Senanayake stopped in his delivery stride, removed the bails and appealed for the run-out. Despite having the opportunity to withdraw the appeal, Angelo Mathews, Sri Lanka's captain, backed his bowler and Mr Buttler was given out.

“Mankading”, as it is known, named after Vinoo Mankad, an early proponent of the art, highlights an interesting divide. By and large it is frowned upon by professional players. Alastair Cook, England’s captain, described the incident as “a pretty poor act”, adding, apparently without irony, “there is a line and I think that line was crossed tonight.” Backing up as the bowler approaches, pros argue, has long been an accepted part of the game. As with many de facto sporting rules (which might also include footballers returning the ball to the opposition when a player is injured or the "neighbourhood play" in baseball, in which umpires will call a runner out so long as the fielder's foot is in the general vicinity of the bag) a team allows opposing batsmen to get away with it because they expect to be granted the same courtesy themselves. In this sense, they are entitled to be angry when the unwritten code is breached. Certainly, Mr Matthews could have few complaints were he now to be run-out in a similar fashion. Indeed, it is classic game theory on his part: weighing up the short-term benefit of disrupting a stable equilibrium against the long-term consequences of retaliation in kind.

But judging by others’ reaction to the incident, non-professionals (including your correspondent) see nothing wrong with Mankading. Stealing a few yards before the bowler has released the ball is gaining an unfair advantage. Put-upon bowlers, who have watched as the game has been skewed further and further in favour of batsmen, have every right to call them out on it. What is more, their right to do so is enshrined in the laws of the game, which state: "The bowler is permitted, before releasing the ball and provided he has not completed his usual delivery swing, to attempt to run out the non-striker."

Nonetheless, abiding by rules is not the same as acting in a right-minded way. Thepreamble to the laws of the game say cricket "should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game". But who are the guardians of ethical norms in sport? It increasingly seems as if the principles of professional players are accepted, de facto, as correct. And they have judged that Mankading is not permissible but, for example, appealing for an LBW decision when the bowler knows the ball to be missing the stumps is. It is the same in other sports. In football, pundits talk, in pseudo-moralistic terms, about strikers having “every right to go down” when they sense the merest contact from an opponent in the penalty box. The moral imperative, they seem to argue, lies with the defender not to touch the attacker, rather than on the attacker not to play-act.

It is perhaps inevitable that professionals should become sport's moral arbiters. After all, their conduct is watched by millions every match. This has the effect of normalising their behaviour. What is more, when public judgment is required it is undertaken by ex-professionals on sports programmes, who tend to share their sensibilities. In their defence, there is also perhaps a case that professionals, paid to eke out every advantage, are more aware of where sport’s pressure points lie, and so are the best judges of what constitutes a crossing of the moral line. But either way, eventually that relentless professional viewpoint is bound to dominate everyone else’s thinking.

There might be an argument for moral relativism; that given the pressures they face, professionals should play to different standards than the rest. But this, it seems, is just a way of saying that professionals’ conduct can be less ethical than others’. And there is a difference between what has become accepted and what is right. In an ideal world, it would be the amateurs who would have the right to decide what is morally acceptable on the sport’s field; the enthusiasts that ruled as philosopher kings above the self-interested professionals. Having played Sunday cricket for many years, your correspondent suspects that those who most cherish cricket’s spirit are to be found on the village green, not the county square. If they say Mankading is moral, who are the pros to disagree?

Sledging's inevitable? That's just silly

The idea that trash talk is a by-product of competitiveness, and essential to spice up a contest, is laughable

Ed Smith

January 1, 2013

 

The marketers would have us think that the public loves scenes like this © Getty Images

At a recent social event I bumped into a fast bowler who I'd played against many times. It was the first time I'd seen him since my retirement, and at first I couldn't work out what was odd about the conversation. He seemed sheepish, unable to look me in the eye, embarrassed about something. But what? As he was still playing the game professionally, I tried to draw him out about how things were going. "As you'll remember," he eventually replied, nervously, "I'm an idiot on the pitch, but I'm working on that these days." The point, however, is that I didn't remember. I had completely forgotten that he had sledged quite a bit. He'd remembered, I'd forgotten.

We should recast the debate about sledging. It is not about the sledged or so-called "victim", who is usually completely unaffected. It concerns the values and standards of the sledger. How does he want to live his life? It was the boxer Floyd Patterson, I think, who said that "trash talk" (as boxers call sledging) is easy - the hard thing for lippy fighters was accidentally bumping into an opponent with his wife and kids at the airport.

The fourth Test, in Melbourne, was not an especially fractious affair, though it had the occasional silly moment. So this column is not specifically about the last Test, nor even targeted only at this Ashes series. Instead, I want to expose some of the myths that threaten to undermine the sport we all love. It is time to ask a simple question: who are the real victims of sledging?

There is a nasty little theory going around that Michael Clarke and his Australians have "toughened up" this series and that their improved performance is somehow bound up with this hardening of their external behaviour. Thus the diplomatic, pointedly courteous Clarke who led Australia to defeat in the English summer is reincarnated as an Aussie battler with a sharp tongue and a nasty streak in the victorious campaign of 2013-14. It is a seductive theory, just the kind of easy, populist history that displaces complex truths with simplistic myths.

I see the causal chain working in the opposite direction. It is not sledging that leads to winning, it is winning that leads to sledging. Ironically, that makes it worse. Far from being an explanation of success, it is simply a failure of grace and dignity. Far from being a subtle strategic art, sledging is just an embarrassing version of playground bullying. The people with the real problems are the players who lose their dignity. Within education, in schools suffering outbreaks of bullying, improved behaviour often follows from asking the bullies themselves how they can be helped to get over their evident psychological problems. The focus, quite rightly, is on their inadequacies.

England, apparently, had quite a bit to say for themselves during their 3-0 victory. Now Australia have relished an opportunity to talk down to England while they have been playing above them. What guts, what bravery! To swear at opponents when they can't get a run or a wicket!

There is a lot of selective history about "toughness" and superficial behaviour. The fact that Allan Border's Australia lost in 1985 and won in 1989 is often framed by reference to his famous quote, "I'm sick of being seen as a good bloke and losing. I'd rather be a prick and win." But in terms of explaining the crucial improvements in 1989, I would look first at the 41 wickets of Terry Alderman and the 1345 runs that came from the bats of Steve Waugh and Mark Taylor.

The way sportsmen perform is determined by the complex interaction of skill, talent, resilience and context. The way they behave is simply a personal choice. And many of the greatest players, in all sports, have chosen to behave very well. Garry Sobers, Don Bradman and Rahul Dravid did not sledge the bowlers they dismantled, any more than Michael Holding sledged the batsmen he terrorised. There is scarcely a scrap of critical evidence to pin against the behaviour of Rod Laver, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on the tennis court.

Nadal is arguably the toughest competitor, both mentally and physically, in any sport in the world. Toughness, of course, is playing at the limit of your capacity as often as possible. Yet nothing could be more ridiculous than the idea that Nadal would become tougher by unleashing a stream of abuse at Andy Murray just before the start of a match. And yet that is exactly the presumption of people who believe in a correlation between sledging and toughness.

Which leads me to another of cricket's self-destructive myths: that demeaning behaviour is inevitable, that it is the logical result of "market forces" and "the pressures of modern professional sport". Not true. Last January, I met up with Brad Drewett, then chief executive of the ATP, at the Australian Open in Melbourne. Drewett was dying from motor neurone disease, and the meeting had the poignant subtext that it was likely to be the first and last time we would meet.

Drewett described how the impressive culture at the top of men's tennis today is unrecognisable from his own time as a player in the 1980s. Back then, flashy rivalries degenerated into personal contemptuousness and many big guns treated the junior players with dismissive disdain. With the tantrums and outbursts of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, tennis was indulging the idea that "nice guys finish last".

"Roger Federer helped to change all that," Drewett explained, "and Rafael Nadal fitted in with the standards he set. After them, everyone had to follow their example."

	Far from being a subtle strategic art, sledging is just an embarrassing version of playground bullying. The people with the real problems are the players who lose their dignity

Following the trajectory of the 1980s, tennis today ought to be an uninterrupted expletive-ridden tantrum. But it hasn't happened. Quite the reverse. A few good men radically altered the course of a whole sport. They changed the image of being a winner. They enhanced the expectations that follow from being a champion. And they will pass on to the next generation a sport in better health than the fractious environment they inherited. Alongside all their other achievements, Federer and Nadal disproved one of the silliest myths of professional sport: that there is some competitive disadvantage in being a decent person. In doing so, they demonstrated a truth rarely acknowledged: cultures are always in flux; they can improve as well as decline.

This fact has eluded not just cricketers but also broadcasters, and worst of all, even administrators. Pundits routinely opine that undignified behavior "adds spice to the contest" and "makes the sport dramatic to the viewer". Has anyone asked the public? The reply follows: "But look at the huge crowds at the MCG and encouraging TV viewing figures. Our brand strategy must be working!"

Well, a few new people with low attention spans are temporarily attracted to vulgarity, just as drivers slow down to look at car crashes on the other side of the road. But for the silent majority, cricket's past and cricket's future, the sport is not enhanced by macho posturing, it is demeaned by it.

The brand experts are mostly quack salesmen who know nothing at all about real brand value. Indeed, the phony profession of brand marketing is only a few decades old. In contrast, real brands - such as the Ashes, for example - have been around a lot longer than the whole concept of "branding".

Anyone who really understands brands - whether it is a business, a reputation or a family name - knows that they are very hard to build but all too easy to destroy. By legitimising playground bullying - indeed celebrating it - cricket believes it is winning some subliminal battle for relevance, for modernity, for a share of the sporting market.

I am not a brand expert, but I have a sense for how sports grow and evolve. And how they can decay and wither. Lowering behavioural expectations will not heighten interest in cricket, not over the long term. Only good cricket can do that.

Sledging in cricket - Pump up the volume

It's time to turn the stump mikes all the way up, and leave them that way

Rob Steen

December 4, 2013

	The next time two players discuss the weather in detail, we'd love to hear what they're saying © BCCI  Enlarge

Taking issue with a pair of sage judges of humankind like George Orwell and Mike Brearley might not be the wisest intellectual venture, but into the valley of the ridiculed here I come.

In his 1945 essay "The Sporting Spirit", Orwell decried the competitive arts as "war minus the shooting" (international sport, that is, not sport per se; his incandescent response to a UK football tour by Moscow Dynamo is so habitually misquoted). Given the quotidian deluge of pain inflicted in its name, not to mention the occasional death, "war minus the looting" might be nearer the mark. Or better yet, as the latest renewal of Ashes mania appears bent on reaffirming, "war plus the loathing".

-----Also Read

Doesn't Sledging Hurt Anyone?

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More recently, this very week, Brearley wrote a typically astute article for the Times, lamenting the intolerably abrasive atmosphere of the Brisbane Test, observing that there was "a narrow line" between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. This struck me as being overly generous.

What distinguishes sport from every other branch of the entertainment industry is its relationship with its audience, enforcing as it does an acute awareness of its constant (and constantly annoying) dancing partner - sportsmanship. Nobody talks about actorship or poetship or dancership; musicianship and authorship relate, respectively, to craft and rights, not conduct. But what do we actually mean by sportsmanship? It certainly tells us something about its complexities that no feminist I know has ever demanded that we refer to sportspersonship, let alone sportswomanship.

It seems reasonable to define this slippery virtue, broadly, as the willingness, even determination, to a) win fairly, honestly and modestly, and b) lose gallantly, graciously and, almost needless to add, unintentionally. Liable as they are to be copied in playgrounds, backyards and parks, any antic that even smacks of cheating or disrespect sets the most erroneous of bad examples, primarily to the impressionable young millions who invest so much of their emotion in, and glean so much of their joy from, the curious world of ballgames.

Sure, the older and wiser we get, the more we understand the unique nature of athletic battle and its impact on even the coolest of tempers. On the other hand, sports watchers of all ages are resolutely intolerant of relatively trifling misdemeanours such as time-wasting, feigned injury or even a withheld handshake. And woe betide those perceived to be cowardly, whether in the form of a tackle shirked, a risk untaken or an opponent tongue-lashed. And rightly so.

That's why, even as we grow ever more inured to violent images, and admiring of murderous on-screen drug lords and mobsters, sledging still disturbs disproportionately - because it tells us the perpetrator has given up trying to prevail through skill. There's banter and there's sledging, of course, and it is to the spite-rich, wit-free latter that one takes exception. To many, the Brisbane Test was sickening, not because of the savagery of the bowling but the vile viciousness of the verbals. One of the odder things about the three-for-the-price-of-one product cricket has become is that the least frantic variety is the likeliest to arouse indefensible behaviour.

Before we get to the remedy, a dose of perspective seems in order. Amid the same Gabba gabfest that saw Messrs Anderson and Clarke reiterate how far cricketers are prepared to go - and always have been - in quest of an edge, the media ridicule meted out to Jonathan Trott was equally if not more offensive. How sobering, moreover, to open a magazine that weekend and snuggle up with cuddly Mike Tyson.

Interviewed, helpfully, by a woman with whom he clearly felt more comfortable not being Mr Macho, here was a champion whose brutality inside and outside the ring is now matched by a self-flagellating honesty that somehow arouses compassion if not pity. Call it a salutary reminder of sport's capacity to simultaneously thrill and disgust. Call it the hidden price of admission. Still, when it comes to ranking the meanest, baddest-assed sportsmen of them all, Iron Mike the Ear-Cruncher was a spayed pussycat next to Ty Cobb.

When Charlie Davis, that endlessly creative Australian statistician, devised a formula to calculate sporting greatness, he focused on one solo endeavour, golf, and four team games - baseball, basketball, cricket and soccer. Using average and standard deviation (σ), the top three emerged as Don Bradman (4.4 σ above the norm); Pelé, whose goals-per-game superiority over other net-bulgers was 3.7 σ; and Cobb, the early 20th century diamond dazzler whose batting average soared 3.6 σ above the baseball mean. But while the Australian and the Brazilian played sport, the American, like Tyson, warred it.

	Denied the release of physical contact, it was inevitable that a cricketer should coin as dastardly a term as "mental disintegration"

"A red-blooded sport for red-blooded men" was how the perpetually snarly Detroit Tiger described his calling. Professional baseball, he insisted, was "something like a war". In acknowledging that the summit of his own profession was "pretty much a war", Alastair Cook at least had the grace to sound a teeny bit bashful.

Cobb was the ultimate ballplayer-warrior: think Steve Waugh, now multiply by a smidge under infinity. Here was a fellow who brazenly and showily sharpened the spikes on his boots, intimidating opponents and making fielders think twice about blocking his ferocious spurts down the baseline. In 1912, he assaulted a one-armed spectator who'd had the temerity to call him a "half-nigger". An enthusiastic racist, he packed a gun wherever he went; he was also reported to have pistol-whipped a man to death. And yes, he was also a mightily accomplished sledger.

The publicity tagline for Ron Shelton's admirably unmanipulative biopic Cobb was perfect: "The Man You Love To Hate". While no cricketer I can think of has ever warranted such a billing, personally speaking, the one who came closest was Matthew Hayden, whose incessant references to his devout Christianity were contradicted so expertly and shamelessly by those crude and cruel on-field tirades.

Sledging is as fertile a field for baseballers as it is for cricketers, because they, too, go about their labours at a leisurely pace; Tom Boswell, the revered Washington Post baseball correspondent, once described his job as "pondering inaction". Sledging seems so unnecessary. After all, another of the many characteristics the two games share is the extent to which they stack the odds. At any given moment, either nine or 11 men are ganging up on one, the avowed aim to negate, nullify and, ideally, exterminate.

Whereas baseball encourages physical contact and even indulges brawls, its more sedate brother from another mother is a subtler beast, albeit no gentler. What it most assuredly is not, has never been, is a game for gentlemen. Officially, that word itself denotes English peerage's lowest rank - below 80-odd others, even Master in Lunacy. When one's place in the pecking order is so insignificant, it is nothing if not pragmatic to be respectful, courteous, well-mannered and occasionally even honourable.

Denied the release of physical contact, it was inevitable that a cricketer should coin as dastardly a term as "mental disintegration". Whether it's Fred Trueman bullying a cowering Cambridge undergraduate, Dennis Lillee and Javed Miandad exchanging goads, Glenn McGrath spewing bile at Ramnaresh Sarwan or Merv Hughes foul-mouthing Graeme Hick, when it comes to rubbishing the game's reputation for civility the exhibits are largely verbal.

Trash-talking is all very well for boxers and those muscular clowns who have made WWE our least credible form of athletic competition. Is it naïve to expect ballplayers to rise above the sort of gratuitous personal abuse that would be stamped on in any other socially conscious workplace? Yes. Are we surprised that Darren Lehmann all but laughed off the suggestion of a "sledging summit"? Definitely not. Transgressors should therefore be pilloried as loudly as possible.

The name of the game must be shame. Shame the sledgers. Shame the needlers and the ranters. Shame the cowards. And the best way to achieve this noble end is not only to keep those stump mics on permanent duty but pump up the volume. Censorship is as pointless as it is dishonest. Why should the guilty be protected? Why shouldn't the audience, spectators as well as viewers, hear every sling and arrow of outrageous verbiage, preferably in Led Zeppelin-esque, Dolby-clarified, Marshall-amplified, 5.1 Surround Sound? They are part of the show. If turning the dial all the way up to 11 encourages wit, splendid. If it exposes nastiness and callousness, even better.

According to international protocol, of course, this ought to be a non-starter rather than a no-brainer. Still, judging by SABC's freewheeling deployment of the stump mic during last week's ODI against Pakistan in Port Elizabeth, let alone the 2006 Durban and Cape Town Tests, which saw Tony Greig and Mike Hussey take bilious exception to such eavesdropping, this doesn't seem to bother the state broadcaster unduly. Regrettably, I cannot report precisely what choice words the fielders selected after Quinton de Kock had given Junaid Khan a gentle shove for invading his space; my command of Urdu, shamefully, is on a par with Shane Warne's acumen in the shrinking-violet department.

Such is the precarious mutual dependence between sport and its most industrious sponsor, the reality is that behaviour will only be improved by stealth. Someday soon, a stump mic will be "accidentally" cranked up, not merely at a heated moment but for an entire day. Technical gremlins will be blamed. Innocence will be asserted. Apologies will be tendered. But the damage, with luck, will have been done. If there really is such a thing as the spirit of cricket - or even The Spirit of Cricket - I can't think of a better way to define what it isn't.