Take a bow David Warner. In a high profile but not particularly crowded field, he has distinguished himself as easily the worst exponent of sledging in international cricket.
David has been castigated this week over the ugly fracas that erupted at the end of Day 4 of the first Test. But what is sorely missing is any sort of discussion on how utterly hopeless he is when it comes to sledging.
Putting aside the issue of whether or not the verbals, chirps, insults, sooks etc from the Australian cricket team has a place in the game, there can be little doubt that David Warner is sorely lacking in the skills needed if wants to be a great mouth.
He is not funny
Every single sports fan on this website knows the great sledges of cricket and knows them incredibly well. Merv Hughes and Viv Richards, Rod Marsh and Ian Botham, Mark Waugh and James Ormond, Glen McGrath and Edo Brandes.
There is simply no more effective way of bagging someone than with a hilarious take that makes them look stupid. On the other hand, Warner’s career sledging highlight is to yell at Rohit Sharma to ‘speak English’.
His brand of yapping, foul-mouthed abuse is as memorable as being cursed by a deadbeat teen outside Wyong Kmart and not nearly as effective.
He’s not discrete
As a background to this, I confess to a manly love for Steve Waugh, his stoic and stubborn approach to challenges has been an inspiration for my entire adult life. He was also an incessant sledger and the evidence of this is, is, well there was the line he said to Herschelle Gibbs, and the blow up with Curtly Ambrose – and that is it really.
Everything else he said was sly and sneaky enough to stay on the field and under the radar. In contrast, Ryan O’Connell made a brave defence of Warner’s rap sheet yesterday and made one thing clear. He has no skill at all at doing something on the field which doesn’t create an incident.
Waugh is a gentlemanly Rotarian who later turns out to have been a cat thief. Warner is the guy with no license because he repeatedly gets caught not wearing his seatbelt.
(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
He’s not effective
Which bring us neatly to the key point of sledging, upsetting and unsettling your opponent. If you are doing it right, the opposition is rattled and not playing their best. Even better, you cause your target so much angst they lose their cool.
David Warner’s mouth has completely unsettled, no-one since the start of his career. His batting has been extraordinary, on debut against South Africa he hit so well that they were forced to scramble their very best bowler out of the attack just to try and unsettle his rhythm.
But his on-field sledging has been a lost cause, no more sharply illustrated than the fact that this latest incident occurred at the end of a day where his long attempt to unsettle Quinton De Kock had been a dismal failure.
All of this aside though, he could carry on sledging to his heart’s content if not for the fact that…
He can’t play
I mentioned in the previous point that the ultimate aim of any sledging has to be the unsettling of an opponent. Well David spent hours trying to get at De Kock who after the play, (yes after the play!) managed to sledge him so well that he lost his cool and are about to be suspended.
Did De Kock cross a line and verbal Warner’s wife? Should this be off limits? Did Warner verbal De Kock’s family?
It doesn’t matter. If you are happy for players to abuse each other on the field during a cricket match but want to have a discussion about the boundaries of what is and what isn’t acceptable, you have missed the entire point of sledging.
[latest_videos_strip category=”cricket” name=”Cricket”]
The only reason you verbal someone is to upset them by saying something they find unacceptable. This does not mean anything goes, and any comment about family, gender, race, religion is fair game on the field. Far from it. If David Warner had laughed in De Kock’s face, and then made an official complaint to the match referee we would have a completely different outcome.
But if you are going to lose your cool and get suspended when someone sledges you, then maybe you shouldn’t be sledging them! Unfortunately, one of the brightest cricket talents of this generation with the bat is intent on being remembered for his lack of talent and self-control with the lip.
Mick
Guest
I thought he was selected to play for Australia because of his immense ability with the bat, not because he was a role model. When did role modelling become a criteria for selection? As for your comment about "out-dated he-man attitude", just pretend for a moment you live in the real world, your at work, and a co-worker you dont particularly like makes a vile comment about your wife to your face. Do you let it slide? do you get angry? how would you react? Let me tell you, if you dont react, your wife also has a wife. Ask her, bet she agrees.
Mick
Guest
Bogan element? come down off your elitist high horse Bobbo (sounds like a good bogan name) So a bogan is defined as someone who defends their family's honor according to you oh great wise one? How about NO. ANY decent human being who is worth a toss defends their family, this is not restricted to bogans but thanks for stereotyping. Warner did not have the privileged upbringing and refinement you obviously think is required to play top level cricket, (I assumed it was all about talent, silly me) and therefor defaults to ingrained behavior when he gets emotional, behaviors he learned growing up poor in a tough area of Sydney. Think about it for a moment. He has achieved tremendous things and changed his family's situation much for the good. Married an ironwoman in the process. In my humble opinion, I give zero stuffs about Warners image as hes paid to make runs which he does at a phenomenal rate with consistency. I would much rather this then a polished, roll model choir boy with half his ability. Warner wins Australia games, who cares what he does and let the umpires do their jobs if hes out of line as thats their jobs.
Mark Young
Roar Guru
Hi jameswm You're right, he is not suspended. However, the South African team knows they are one sly comment about his wife away from getting him kicked off the team for a few games. I stand by my point, that he spent a lot of time, effort and energy trying to unsettle De Kock who then turned around and did a much better job of getting under Warner's skin in much less time.
Mark Young
Roar Guru
Hi JamesH Thanks for reading mate. And I agree, Steve's Waugh's endorsement and support for a mental disintergation culture in the Australian Team was ugly and dishonorable. But still, I'm the guy with Ayrton Senna as my avatar, and he was a colossal sook who nearly killed Alain Prost in 1990. But my lord he could drive a car. Back to Warner. We agree he is not discrete. As for not being Funny or Effective, I assert this in the absence of anything Funny or Effective. Right now, there is plenty of funny stump mic youtube videos of players like Andy Flintoff, Sangakarra etc being hilarious. If Dave had said something funny, we would have heard about it. Or seen other players and umpires smiling and laughing at him. I don't watch as much cricket as I used to, so stand to be corrected. In terms of being effective, again can you point to any player who has been unsettled and upset and played poorly because of David Warner's lip? Shane Warne, completely destroyed the confidence of numerous players, not just Darryl Cullinan and had them beaten before he even bowled a ball. Which brings me to why he can't play - You talk rubbish and verbally smack em about to unsettle them, put them off their game and make them play worse. When Sharma curses Warner in Hindi, or De Kock calls his wife all sorts of unpleasant things - Warner is winning, he has reduced his opponent to trying to insult him instead of focusing on their game. THis is the point where Shane Warne, Steve Waugh or Andy Flintoff burst out laughing and goad them into saying something even dumber. But David Warner ends of yelling and cursing at them and losing his own cool. He is hopeless at Sledging. And I cannot find any evidence that all his bluster and carry on damages the opposition more then it damages him.
paulywalnuts
Guest
Not only that. As we’ve seen over the last day, he’s also a colossal sook.
George
Guest
Nope is one of the oi-oi-oi bogan brigade who can't countenance any criticism of Australian players Perhaps if this energy was directed at questioning Cricket Australia's continual acceptance of its team/coach priding itself on being boorish, then we wouldn't be faced with continual issues like this. Stop abusing the opposition - not a difficult concept to embrace unless you revel in it.
Arky
Guest
Waugh's just lucky that in his era they either didn't pick up as much stuff on stump mics or didn't broadcast it. He and that whole team sledged incessantly.
Jacko
Guest
Where is your article NOPE? Or are you just jumping on the "I love DW bandwagon" Ooops there is NO I Love DW bandwagon ...LOL
Linphoma
Guest
I couldn't imagine being on the field and copping outright abuse. I've been sledged and I sledged back but it's not just outright abuse but a repartee. I do wish everyone would move on. But a few final points: 1. Dave Warner you now have a target on your forehead. For the next 2 years you have to be squeaky clean - and as we see now - off the field too. Nice one Dave. Give yourself an uppercut. 2. You must be real good at this sledging caper. Big spray at Markram, and he managed a lazy 140. Very effective Dave. Nice work. Motivational speaking career for you Dave when you retire. 3. ALL PARTIES. grow up and stow this bleeding "line" that you all seem to want to talk about. A line is what you snort on celebration (only kidding). All this talk about a line seems to make you think you're talking about something which exactly exists. No it doesn't. I would be abasing children if I were to describe this behaviour as childlike - no one would accept the total bullshit that we saw on the various released sets of footage we've seen over the last few days. Stick your "line" both sides, a plague on all your houses. If it comes down to it, the umpires enforce a ban on players conversing between teams while on the field unless it stems through the umpires or fielding captain to the batsmen or vice versa. Really, when you come to think of it, there is no reason for one side to need to converse to the other during play. The umpires convey the start and end of the over; whether the bowler is right or left handed and coming over or around the wicket. If you have a Dean Jones moment as a batsman and need to indicate something to the other side, you can do it through the umpire and he can tell Curtley he don't like your white armbands... Would anyone be comfortable with stump mics on, and the sound of crickets because there is a ban on any conversation between batsmen and fielding side? Makes you pine to hear "Nice Garry"....200 times ina day's play!
JamesH
Roar Guru
Yeah, this is a head-scratcher. Maybe it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek? "He is not funny" Given that you have no idea about 99% of what he says, this is nothing more than a guess. "He's not discrete" I'll give you that one. Warner isn't discrete in anything he does, good or bad, so sledging probably isn't any different. "He's not effective... David Warner’s mouth has completely unsettled no-one since the start of his career" Righto, just cherry pick a couple of instances where his sledging didn't have the desired result and assume it never works. Great logic that. Just more guesswork and probably very, very wrong. "He can't play" I'm not even sure what that means. Are you suggesting that he always loses the 'sledging battle'? If so, that's more guesswork. Unless you can point to other instances where he flew off the handle because he got sledged on/near the field, you're probably wrong. As a side note, Steve Waugh - that bloke you love - fostered a culture of what is regarded as some of the worst unfunny sledging in history by the likes of McGrath, Warne and Hayden. He simply let his henchmen do most of the dirty work so he could keep his hands clean. Is that really any better? There's probably a good argument that it's actually worse.
TC123
Guest
That's because he is a tool
Liam
Guest
"The only reason you verbal someone is to upset them by saying something they find unacceptable." Nope. You sledge to stay interested yourself, you sledge for a response, you sledge to distract, you sledge to remind them you're there, you sledge to make your teammates laugh. The above is the bull created by the devotees of Steve Waugh's 'mental disintegration' tactic, who feel that the only way to weaken or distract an opponent is to bully, intimidate or otherwise attack them. There are just so many ways to do this instead; you can make them laugh, you can make them join in, respond, you can get them to reminisce about other games, names, times. You can actually behave like a teammate; your sledging could make them laugh, keep them focused, make them more able to stay with you over the day. I hate the fact that, at international level, this is what sledging is. The sledge has been perverted into awfulness that has no place on the field, no place in any civilised endeavor. The worst of it is not that it is vile, but that it is unimaginative; that what can be done with an artist's touch is done now with a wreaking ball. No subtlety, no intelligence or wit; just machismo and aggression, sans brain.
jameswm
Guest
"But if you are going to lose your cool and get suspended when someone sledges you..." He got suspended? I missed that.
Mike Dugg
Guest
We don't know exactly what was said by both parties as the stump mic audio hasn't been released which I find convenient since the CCTV was leaked almost immediately by the South Africans. You'd think if Warner was so bad they'd be happy to have that audio out for the world to hear. This is just like the Clarke broken arm ashes incident. Clarke was labeled a terrible guy for saying that to Anderson due to the selective audio which was heard until we found out what the Englishman had said to George Bailey
Mark Young
Roar Guru
Hi Nope You got me there, I don't write on Cricket often as I really don't know as much about it as League or Motorsport, not my area of expertise. Still enjoy the game though. Do you think David Warner is good at Sledging? I think he is completely hopeless at it.
Nope
Guest
Tiresome. Poor attempt to jump on the "I hate David Warner bandwagon". Written by another contributor, just like another article yesterday, who has never written an article about cricket nor commented on cricket articles.
shaun
Guest
you mentioned it but didnt dwell on it... but the point of sledging is to unsettle a batsman. When you hurl abuse after you have already take the wicket as he did with Lyon you just look like a tosser and it is not sledging, just verbal abuse.
Bobbo7
Guest
Bang on. Warner just comes across as an uncontrolled tool when he blows up like this. I don't know who said what to whom, but it really a really doesn't matter. Just ignore it or say bugger off and leave it at that. I love the bogan element on The Roar commenting, "mate if someone said something about my misses I'd do the same thing". Carrying on like a dickhead in response to a stupid comment does not make you more manly or achieve anything. After the ABD send off I reckon the Aussies could be on the end of an ABD special the next game. The problem is that Warner goes well beyond sledging. I love sledging - even when I played I liked it at club cricket. Usually funny, sometimes moronic but part of the game. But Warner has got into fights, scraps and all it does I say distract from the good player he has become.
Diplomatt
Guest
Thank you for taking the time to reply. You also have a great day. I don't like people who think they are superior because of their postcode or age. I'm with the teens on this one.
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
Yep. And because he's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, he doesn't even have the self-awareness to realize how counter-productive he is. And then there's the outdated he-man attitude he has - thinking the only way to 'stand up' to sledging is to huff and puff in a pathetic show of 'manliness'. Hardly a great role model for kids is it...