Shut up about sledging

I don’t mind sledging much. There are times when I quite enjoy it.

At its best it’s positively artful, and you get timeless anecdotes like Viv Richards’s immortal “You know what it looks like – go get it” or Eddo Brandes’ famous explanation of his weight-gain regimen to Glenn McGrath.

And at its worst – as when Matthew Hayden used to stand at slip bellowing a continuous recital of every swear word he knew while occasionally making the sign of the cross and thanking Jesus – it’s still kind of adorable that grown men think yelling “ya f****** p****!” is a sign of virility.

So I don’t really agree with Tim Lane’s assessment that Australia must address its “sledging culture” in this thoughtful and well-intentioned piece. I don’t really buy into the argument that Australian brutes have ruined the game with their savage wordplay.

I tend to scoff at any claim that Australia is unique in its eagerness to sledge, or that the modern era of cricket is unique in its aggressive verbal character.

Sledging is fine, as far as it goes. But if I may make a plea to the cricketing world: can we stop talking about it?

(Let us pause here to note that yes, talking about sledging in order to demand an end to talking about sledging is incredibly ironic, and yes, your comment to that effect is terribly clever. Now on with the show.)

When it’s left on the field, sledging is almost always no big deal. When taken off the field, analysed, dissected, argued over, complained about, and forensically deconstructed, it’s agonisingly tedious.

(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

I don’t know where the idea first took root, but at some point, either the cricketing fraternity or the cricketing media decided that the public had an insatiable appetite for stories about sledging. And so in the last few years every series is accompanied by an avalanche of reports about what’s been said on field, what’s been said off field about what’s been said on field, the opposition’s reaction to what was said off field about what was said on field, and the philosophical ruminations of the opposing captains on just what should and shouldn’t be said on and off field.

These are then followed by a similar flood of thinkpieces by commentators ranging from the belligerent to the self-righteous, in which one writer will denounce the verbal tactics of one side, another writer will point out the sins of the other, and a third writer, filled with the holy light of the truly impartial, will place a plague on both their houses.

But here’s the thing, folks: nobody cares.

Honestly. Nobody. Did David Warner tell Jonny Bairstow not to headbutt his mates? Was Bairstow wounded by the remark? Did the Australians go too far? Are England being hypocritical? Should Nathan Lyon have said he wanted to end careers? Did Jimmy Anderson ever get that broken f****** arm? Where is the line?

That’s what they all talk about, isn’t it? “The line”. Any cricketer, upon being accused of excessive sledging, will declare that his team “plays the game hard”, but promise, hand on heart, that they “don’t go over the line”.

Where the line is, who knows? It’s a quantum variable, a constantly shifting point about whose location the only thing we can say with certainty is that it’s at least one millimetre further away from us than the last sledge the team in question delivered.

Almost everyone is agreed that there are some things that should not be said, and we can decry instances of serious personal harassment or on-field bigotry, but beyond that, no one cares where the line is. No one cares if the big bad cricketers are being a bit rude. No one cares if a globetrotting millionaire with a cricket bat got his feelings hurt.

There are those who claim that sledging adds to “the theatre”, and that’s true to an extent. A rather small extent, though. What cricket fans love, most of all, is cricket. Bowling, batting, fielding, etcetera.

(Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

If sledging comes along to add a minor dash of spice, then fine. If at the end of the day those tasked with unpicking the twists and turns of play decide instead to obsess over that dash of spice, it does nothing but suck the joy out of cricketing fandom.

And this also goes for those who like to opine professorially about the use of sledging as a tactical ploy. I’m looking at you, Steve Waugh. You started all that “mental disintegration” nonsense, and ever since we’ve had to listen to cricketers talk about their habit of questioning their opponents’ sexuality as if it was a gambit from Napoleon.

Like I say, sledging is fine – but it doesn’t make you a genius and nobody cares about your long-winded justifications for it. Just get on with it, for god’s sake.

Sledging is okay. It’s not the ruination of the game, and it’s not the brilliant manoeuvre of a flannelled Machiavelli. It’s just a bunch of stuff some guys said on a field. Players, go for your lives – but spare we poor punters the boredom.