Hard yakkers: Australia's greatest sledging XI

As I’ve watched our boys struggle against Pakistan inside Dubai’s silent bowl of chairs, my mind has raced with the usual juvenile tactics that become attractive when your mob is copping a pasting.

With the game slipping away and sound levels inside the arena at Chaplin movie lows, why the heck didn’t our boys take advantage of these sublime acoustics and sub-woof some heavy duty sledging?

At times, the place has been so empty that you could’ve told a knock-knock joke in the sheds and it would’ve been picked up inside a Karachi timber mill. The opportunity to go to another level on the dog-barking and heritage-questioning while being humiliated has passed outside off-stump untouched, and it’s dead set criminal from the Australians.

As I lamented while aimlessly swearing in to the ether to get my fix, it got me thinking. Which Aussies would I want out there, taking the lowbrow approach by chattering the bejesus out of Pakistan as they roast us on the scoreboard?

And with that, I channelled my inner Trevor Hohns and got down to selecting my ultimate squad of hard-yakking gum-bangers from the land Down Under. But be aware – my team comes with a condition.

As you will see, those picked are not necessarily about quality; in some cases, it’s just about displaying the style of verbal trots that would get you a start on The View, hence the inclusion of some of the uncouth parrots from the current day.

Matt Hayden
As we all know, the burly Bull is an impeccably behaved man of the cloth off the field, however once he crossed the rope and planted himself at first slip, opponents would say he had a mouth express-posted direct from Hades. One of the rare good church boys whose preferred ‘C’ word certainly wasn’t ‘Christ’.

David Warner
As I said at the top, the team wasn’t going to be completely flushed with eloquence. Warner is one of the protagonists of the Michael Clarke era, taking the lead in the field as a Tourette’s afflicted junkyard dog. Despite the lack of incisiveness, the man’s dedication is apparent with every energetic shift he puts in, and at the rate he’s going an endorsement deal with Strepsils shouldn’t be far off.

Ricky Ponting
While the former captain wasn’t a committed orator that stood out from his peers, he was never averse to telling his opposite to f**k off if it meant getting him off the field or back to his mark quicker. Think Napoleon at first drop.

Steve Waugh
Recognised as one of the great forefathers of chip, mainly for his tireless work in having the skillset officially recognised in the Aussie cricket curriculum under the guise of ‘mental disintegration’. Would initially attempt to disarm your soul with his icy-dead glare before reminding you of the importance of something you’ve dropped.

Andrew Symonds
You can’t buy this style of arid outback wit. Sure, Roy had imposing size that could send a timid bat back to the sheds through pure fright, but it was his ability to plant a white-anting seed in the opponent’s brain that was his specialty.

Shane Watson
Another one of the new breed who have taken it upon themselves to boorishly hammer at the opposition’s psyche with the lexical trots. Gets a start for his intimidating physical presence as well as his high-endurance voicebox, even though his lemon of a body would be lucky to attract $1000 ONO in the Trading Post.

Rod Marsh
Just beats Ian Healy for selection as gloveman, mainly in the name of balance. The team has a boorish contemporary element that required attuning, and the moustachioed custodian’s knockabout charm keeps it in check. While his wrap sheet is lusty and blue, he’s probably best known as the eventual loser in one of cricket’s greatest discourses involving him, Ian Botham, and a negotiation over ownership of a wife and kids.

Shane Warne
Where do we start? With his requirement to flick his hair, set the field, deliver airborne platinum and ‘oooohh’ with a grimace in question of the batsman’s right to face his heaven-kissed bowling, it was tough for Warney to find time to berate the opposition. But he always did. No boundary was too sensitive to cross, and no nickname too corny to impart for one of the game’s great crap artistes.

Merv Hughes
I was once given a book that chronicled all of cricket’s great sledges, and one third of the book was devoted to the work of one man – Swervin’ Merv. This closet bikie was a man truly ahead of his time. While adroit at imparting the wit of the old school, he was just as deft at applying the modern way of a bulldozer’s touch with savage cussing. Also known as the thinking man’s sledger with his use of trail-blazing methods involving his wind-blazing arse.

Dennis Lillee
A thunderbolt of flowing locks and bouncing jewellery, he gave Australia a feeling of invincibility and opposing teams a complex of anything unshaven. If he didn’t have you packing bricks with his a-grade manly manliness, he would bounce your fringe, and if you were still sucking oxygen at this point, he would follow through and quip you with a bewdy. Or just kick you in the calf.

Jeff Thomson
A homicidal maniac who was always up for a chat, usually over your dead body.

Twelfth man: Glenn McGrath
How cranky can a teapot with a bowl-cut get? If Pigeon got the sh*ts, he was only too happy to try and civilly talk over his differences with the batsman in a one-way mediation process, except in cases involving Ramnaresh Sarwan.

Coach: Len Pascoe
This famous firebrand, of Yugoslavian descent, gets the gig as coach for his outstanding credentials as a mentor for the savage. Coached NSW briefly in retirement, but it’s more his love of a beamer and a punching bag that got him over the line for this position, and the requirement to keep him from the field to avoid any chance of affray.

Now over to the unforgiving Roar slips cordon. Which of your favourite lippy Aussies would you love to be chirping for your life?