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As I watched the Aussies push hard for an unlikely victory in the last two sessions of the first Test, I did as many do these days and checked Twitter to see what my fellow Tweeps had to say about the spirited action in front of us.
While most of what I read consisted of lively debate and good questions, there was one comment that was disappointing to read.
Obviously having just seen the exchanges between Graeme Smith, Michael Clarke and James Pattinson, this person decided to tweet “Typical Australian behaviour sore losers can’t win lets (sic) abuse everyone”.
What was disappointing for me when reading this was that once again the Aussies are being hung out to dry for their part in any banter on the field, with assertions that we are the only ones who exchange in verbal warfare.
It was a particularly curious comment given events that had transpired earlier in the Test.
In my mind I immediately asked – did this person happen to catch the start of day four at all? Did he happen to catch Smith walking past Ed Cowan and giving him a good portion of his mind, which was greeted with a warm smile by the Aussie opener?
I found this small piece of byplay to be fantastic and loved every second of it – a captain getting frustrated deciding to try a verbal bouncer, and a batsman smiling as if to say “bring it on mate”.
But why is it that there was no comment made about this? If the Aussies decided to get a bit chirpy people would be far quicker to criticise.
This is not something that is isolated to this match, but something that has been the case for decades and something that gets my back up.
Yes, we are quite good at the art of sledging and there are times where we cross the line. But we are far from the only team to do this, even though we seem to be the team most often criticised for it.
It boiled my blood for the Indian media and Virat Kholi to lay into the Aussie team for the banter flying around when Kholi was clearly nervous approaching a maiden century.
It was clear that they got in his head. The Australians were criticised by the Indian media and Kholi came out and made comments about it. Yet, in the same presser, he admitted that he and Ishant Sharma has taken great delight in chipping back and trying to “piss them off” in his own words.
As far back as the 70s, under the leadership of Ian Chappell, the tag of the ‘Ugly Australian’ has always lingered around like the geeky cousin in the room.
And yet as far back as then, every country has engaged in some sort of gamesmanship or ‘mental disintegration’. As Ian Chappell said, a weakness in character is no different to a weakness outside off stump and is to be exploited.
Now I understand there are lines that should not be crossed, and those that do cross these lines should be punished accordingly. There has been more than one occasion where the Aussies have been guilty of this – but once again, so has everyone else.
The mantra of ‘if you dish it out, you need to be able to take it’ needs to be adopted by many.
From all reports, the two teams in battle today are firm followers of this and had a much less intense get together in the rooms after the game. It is time for the rest of the world to follow suit.
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