Fight to win: Sledging in cricket

Sledging—often termed as the most unsophisticated manoeuvrein the larger practice of ‘mental disintegration’ - has been a part of the gentlemen’s game for years. Whenever we think of it, we are reminded about names like Allan Border, Ricky Ponting, Andrew Symonds and many more.

Test cricket, which was the only form of the game many years ago, depends a lot on the mental vigour and the immense focus that is required to play throughout the grueling five days. The most mental hard work is done by the batsmen playing who are isolated from the rest of the squad.

The Aussies have been famous for perfecting their sledging skills as much as their game and in times, even better. History credits Vic Richardson, former Australian vice-captain for promoting this action all over the world—that explains why his grandsons, the Chappell brothers inherited this wonderful talent. With time, this delightful practice made its way beyond the Aussie shores.This spirit of gladiatorial combat among the cricketers has made its way down the decades, through countless tests and O.D.Is played between Australia and West Indies. Those Lara-McGrath conversations never fail to tickle the funny bone. Then, sledging became common in the high voltage India-Pakistan matches or the India-Australia ones.

Sree Sreesanth, the Indian pacer, now spending merry times in the custody, has got one of the richest histories of sledging behind him.

The couple of memorable instances of sledging are -

Venkatesh Prasad and Aamir Sohail during the 1996 World Cup quarter finals.

Sourav Ganguly’s snarl at Stuart Broad in 200;

Zaheer Khan and M Riaz of Bangladesh in a test match.

Sledging has been the most common sight in the shortest format of the game – the 20 overs matches. Tournaments like IPL thrive on such spirit of gladiatorial combat. In the recently concluded IPL, we came to see spats between Gambhir-Kohli and Pollard-Watson (Pollard’s act was termed as an act of cowardice by Rahul Dravid), Johnson-Dravid and many more. There you go, an Aussie name tagged with each of them.

This act of players is really not justifiable. No one can say that just to play well, they lose their temper and, hence, end up abusing someone on the field. If that was the fact, then Sir Bradman, Viv Richards would have been mere losers. In the present time, Mike Hussey, Dhoni, Tendulkar use only their hands, wrist, feet,etc to play well and not their lips. How can they do it then?

To me, this culture of sledging should be stopped immediately for the sake of the game and all players should maintain a good conduct on the field, and only then the sport can be called a ‘Gentlemen’s Game’ once again with pleasure by the lover of the game.