Opinion: Australian media insulting Team India might come back to haunt The Aussies

After Australian Coach Justin Langer asked the Australian cricketers to play the game in the right spirit without resorting to sledging, it seems the Australian media, albeit a small section of the media, has taken up the mantle of sledging the Indian cricket team, even before a ball is bowled in the high profile Test series.

Terming Indian cricket team as ‘scaredy bats’ and listing out how each of the four venues for the Test series has something unique to frighten the Indian cricketers is a cheap shot by the media at a touring side. Rightly, most cricket fans, experts and media, including much of the mainstream Australian media, have condemned this sort of reportage.

However, the fact that a media outlet in Australia published such outlandish and to be honest, an unintelligent phrasing (a loose derivative from the more common “scaredy cat”) of the caption, is a pointer that there may be more vitriolic to come from the Australian media during the course of this series.

However, such insults may actually boomerang and adversely impact the Australian team in the series. For one, the Indian captain Virat Kohli thrives on such challenges where sledging and abuses spur him to perform with more determination. Every single word of insult, abuse or challenge by a player from the opposing team or from the crowd or media, seems to be an affront to him. He takes it upon himself to prove every detractor wrong.

Publically, Kohli may deny that he does not need confrontational attitude from the opposition to do well, but it has been established beyond doubt that the more the confrontation or sledging, the greater is his determination and higher the level of his performance.

The ‘scaredy bat’ caption has come at a very wrong time, it seems, for the Australian team. This Indian team, unlike the ones in the pre-Sourav Ganguly era, is one that does not back down when confronted and gives it back to the opposition in both words and deeds.

This simple publicity-seeking act by an Australian media outlet may end up doing more harm to the cause of the Australian team in the upcoming series.