Sledging: Should ICC draw a line?

Michael Clarke

Cricket was once known as the gentleman’s game, but, 170 years since the first ever international cricket match was played, a lot has changed. There’s much more at stake when you play a cricket match today than you had in the 1900s. The game, today, is not only much more physical and technical but also much more direct.

Cricket has increasingly become a batsman-dominated game with bowlers needing new ways to try and adjust this balance between bat and ball. A fast bowler still needs to use pace, swing and aggression to get his wickets, but, in the modern day game, he also needs to use his grey matter.

A batsman playing in England or Australia still requires the same amount of concentration that he did 30 years ago, and it is a bowler’s job to make it incredibly tough for him. Whether a bowler chooses to do this by swinging the ball both ways, by slipping in a short ball every now and then, by varying his pace with slower balls or by uttering words that tempts a batsman into a mistake should be left to him.

Positive sledging v Negative sledging

The modern day game involves batsmen to score quick runs, and the fielding side, therefore, can use words to tempt a slow-scoring batsman into an aggressive stroke. This, too, is sledging, but there’s no harm in allowing it because it tests the grit of a batsman and his ability to let the bat do the talking: it’s what I call positive sledging. Sledging a batsman is all right as long as the intention is only to try and test his concentration power.

The use of foul language, the kind that Michael Clarke used to upset Jimmy Anderson in the 2013-14 Ashes series; or racist remarks, the kind that Harbhajan Singh was accused of using in the 2007-08 Monkey-Gate incident, however, are targeted at aggravating a batsman’s temper: an act that ruins the spirit of the game. Such incidents belong to negative sledging and set a bad example for the millions of fans who follow the sport, inevitably spurring up unnecessary controversy.

Disallowing sledging altogether in cricket will make it dull and pull the passion out of the game. There is a very fine line between positive sledging and negative sledging, and it’s the job of the ICC to clearly define the two so that the on-field umpires may categorize an incident immediately, allowing the game to flow uninterrupted.

If a young, passionate player uses foul language during a match unintentionally, then he should be issued a warning. If he knows that redoing the offense may disrupt his career, he’ll be more careful. So, negative sledging must have serious consequences.

Presently, there aren’t too many issues surrounding the use of foul language in cricket, but, if there is no law that disallows negative sledging, then sooner or later players will start using it to their advantage. A one match ban won’t be a harsh enough punishment to give if a bowler uses foul language to aggravate a key batsman’s temper in a World Cup final.

This article has been contributed by a member of the SK Featured Bloggers Club. It was originally published on ‘Cricket Reviews by Maanav’ blog here.