Australia and sledging are never too far apart. Despite captain Ricky Ponting’s assurance that he would clean up Australia’s bad image as sledgers extraordinaire, incidents keep popping up at Australia’s games.
The game against New Zealand once again served up the best of Aussie verbal delicatcies. Hot words were exchange in the closely contested game, giving the Port Elizabeth game more spice than a Durban curry.
The trouble started when Ponting and Chris Cairns exchanged words after the Kiwi all-rounder was caught for 16. Ponting ran all the way from point to give Cairns a personal send-off, before he joined his teammates in their celebrations. Cairns didn’t enjoy Ponting’s greeting at all and complained to umpire Steve Bucknor, an action the Australians didn’t appreciate.
Bucknor reported the incident to match referee Ranjan Madugalle, who had a discussion with both Cairns and Ponting after the game, but no action was taken against Ponting.
In the same game Glen McGrath and Stephen Fleming also had a heated exchange, but Fleming dismissed it as part of the game.
Ponting said the incident with Cairns was nothing to get upset about. ”It’s just a bit of friendly banter really between the both of us. I copped a little bit when I batted, so I thought it was only fair that I gave him a bit back while he was batting, or after he got out. It wasn’t that serious, I don’t think it will go any further than that,” he said.
Australian cricket officials have expressed concern about the image of the national team. When South African batsman Graeme Smith broke ranks last year to talk about the verbal abuse he suffered at the hands of the Test team, the Australian Cricket Board was not happy. They called for thei team to change their image on the field.
Smith accused Matthew Hayden of greeting him with four F words in his opening sentence. Pakistan’s Shoaib Akthar has also pointed fingers at Hayden, a reportedly devout Christian, for his bad language.
”That’s the Australian way,” Akhtar said. ”They always talk. So thanks to Hayden once again. He just kept talking back at me.”
Darren Lehman accused Smith of being a whiner — and Jimmy Maher said he couldn’t believe that Hayden would act that way. Yet many knew that Smith was not lying.
Lehman himself copped a five-match ban for a racial slur against the Sri Lankans that kept him out of the first game of the World Cup.
After Smith’s allegations Ponting told the press that he would not allow unnecessary abuse under his captaincy. But now he himself has broken this accord. Even Australian journalists are getting tired of their team’s continued abuse of other teams.
”A lot of people say the players come across as bullies who cannot cop it when someone from another team gives them a little of their own medicine,” wrote Martin Blake in the Australian newspaper The Age.
”Australia has won 14 consecutive matches and is virtually unchallenged at the top of the cricketing tree. It doesn’t need to put the boot into anyone.”
South African captain Shaun Pollock said teams who think that sledging is not a tactic the Australians deliberately use, are naive.
”Steve Waugh talks about ‘mental disintegration’. It’s a tactic they use. If you can make a guy not feel confident out there and play out of his comfort zone, then good for you,” he said.