That Fine Art Called Sledging

Sreesanth and Hayden, cricket's bad boys

The dust had barely settled on Monkeygate, before another (two, if you include the spat between Ishant Sharma and Andrew Symonds) potential row has threatened to disrupt what has been one of the more evenly contested cricket series in recent memory.

Looking at the controversy, there are two indisputable facts. One, that no team sledges more (and you have to admit, more effectively too) than the Australians. It is equally true that Indians have been reported more times (and not just in Australia) for reasons of indiscipline than players from any other side playing the game.

Depending on your nationality, one can take a stand on Harbhajan Singh politely inquiring about Mrs. Symonds’ private parts (I honestly think there is something seriously wrong with the game if that is more acceptable than a cricketer calling a fellow player a monkey).

Or you can get morally uppity about Matt Hayden calling Harbhajan “a poisonous weed”, which considering it wasn’t said in the heat of battle was perhaps not the nicest of things to say.

So, do Australians sledge? Or, are Indians regularly reported on issues of misconduct? The truth might lie, as it often does, somewhere between those two doggedly, even adamantly, held positions.

Gavaskar is being a bit naïve when he says he wants to get sledging banned from international cricket. It isn’t as if sledging thrives because it is a part of some official ICC statute. Repeat offenders like Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh, or for that matter, Mathew Hayden aren’t exactly choirboys waiting for an official ICC ban on sledging to zip their mouths.

Most cricketers who have played international cricket would tell you that there are essentially two kinds of sledging. One happens when the contests run close, as they have in the ongoing series between India and Australia. In the heat of battle, and often even as part of strategy, players go in for sledging.

It has been known when players discuss strategies in team meetings, names of some players come up who are perceived to be vulnerable to sledging. You give the batsman a verbal work over, and see if he gets distracted enough to give the bowlers a chance. Similarly, you engage a bowler in a verbal spat, and see if you can throw him off his line and length.

That sort of sledging, though part of no ICC code, is acceptable among most cricketers.

The part that is unacceptable is when someone like Hayden shoots his mouth off in a radio show, knowing fully well his words will be repeated, even lapped up by both Indian and Australian media. Once players use the media to take pot shots at each other, there is no telling how far it can go, or how ugly it can get.

Even the Australians know better than to sledge against an old pro like Tendulkar. He is not known to give it back verbally, but uses his broad bat to cause considerable damage. Shane Warne, who always had a thing or two to say from his position in the slips, has admitted on more than one occasion there was simply no percentage in sledging against Tendulkar. “There would be no discernible reaction from the maestro, he would just take it out on the bowling,” observed Warne.

While some players like Tendulkar are impervious to sledging, others like former India captain Sourav Ganguly clearly enjoy giving it back. Ganguly once said the idea was not to hurl abuse at the opposing player, it was to get under his skin, may be throw him off his normal game to gain a cricketing advantage. During the now famous 2001-02 Test series, Ganguly would often delay his arrival on the ground for the toss, making the opposing skipper Steve Waugh wait. At that time Waugh said he found Ganguly “rather irritating”, which Ganguly took as high praise from a man who pioneered the concept of “mental disintegration”.

As part of that concept, every time a visiting side arrived in Australia, one of the lead Australian bowlers (unusually it was Glen McGrath) would announce in the media that the main batsman of the visitors was his bunny. The idea was to score a quick mental point. Sometimes it worked, on other occasions as in the case of Sourav Ganguly in 2003-04, it backfired spectacularly.

Post-retirement, writing in his autobiography, Waugh lavished praise on Ganguly as “a tough cricketer and a tougher captain”. The praise was hard-earned. Ganguly first captained an Indian side that scripted a memorable Test victory at Eden Gardens in 2001, and then went on to win the series.

Two years later in Australia, threatened with “chin music”, Ganguly decided to fight fire with fire and scored a fine attacking hundred against the Aussie fast bowlers in the first Test at Brisbane. India not only drew the series 1-1, but had the Australians on the ropes in the last Test at Sydney before Steve Waugh, playing his last Test match, produced a typical rearguard action that saved Australia’s blushes.

Australians have learnt the hard way the pointlessness of riling players like Tendulkar or Ganguly.

Contemporary cricket is both physically gruelling and mentally tough, a far cry from the gentleman’s game played by the likes of WG Grace. The game is played harder, both on and off the ground. There is no point getting squeamish about sledging.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian one-day captain, has put the issue in right perspective when he said sledging is an art, and that the Australians have turned sledging into an art form and Indians have some catching up to do in this regard.

Dhoni’s statement has just the right blend of caution, common sense and aggression – like his best one-day knocks. You can take it at face value and say Dhoni was complimenting, albeit backhandedly, the Australians for their sledging skills. Or you can read in his straight faced response an implied threat – that Indians plan to sledge just as good and as hard in the coming days.

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