Walk the talk or stay mum

James Faulkner reacts after Darren Sammy hits a six

Darren Sammy’s eyes lit up with glee. Swaddled with an ever charming smile, the Caribbean skipper smelled blood as he saw the bloke who was marking his run up. When he dug out a couple of toe crushers upfront with a miner’s guile, Aussie fans fanned a vestige of hope regarding a backdoor sneak. The bowler ran in only to be smashed twice into the stands. The game was sealed. Egos were shattered.

The bowler was none other than James Faulkner who looked as white as a sheet. Verbal jargon had been doled out the day before, making Faulkner the cynosure of attention at the press conference. Payback time it was and Sammy paid him in full. Faulkner apparently didn’t ‘like’ the Windies and that he won’t like them any better now is a layman’s guess.

The incident of course presented its fair share of fun and frolic, but brought scores of eyeballs to an evident, yet oblivious issue donning modern day cricket’s crown.

Verbal torrents on and off the field have hogged the headlines as much, if not more, than the cricketing action. Professional cricket resembles a battle and cricketers reckon themselves to be blood stained kinsmen armed with ammunition to annihilate their counterparts.

“Sledging” has become the step brother accompanying the game of cricket cranking up its own share of cacophony, chaos and unmitigated agony. When emotions reach a pinnacle amidst the excruciating heat of a contest, words become the conduit for innate feelings to flow, more often than not leaving behind a distastefulness hard to dismiss.

Every heart becomes a battlefield and every day will look like night. Intimidation has been deemed as an effective weapon in cricket, an art that has been employed by many an artisan with appreciable returns. The numero uno objective of the verbal volleys bring bringing a glitch in an opponent’s concentration which is otherwise unwavering and focussed to the hilt, teams around have mercilessly doled out wit and wile, punctuating each vicious word with venom.

The hallmark of sledging over the years has been the quality of the game play succeeding the wolf grunting ways. The men deployed to dole out verbal abuses backed up the same with an immaculate display of pyrotechnics with the willow or shaking opponents to sobriety through their guile with the cherry.

The Aussies, hard-nosed ones they ever were, have exhibited that extra tongue while on the field. The baggy greens have always had a foot in their mouth, never short of words to say. Their repartee has been as crowd pulling as has been their magnificence when on show.

The sharpness in action and the brutality in verbal assaults have spooked opponents and steamrolled sides. But, as mentioned above, the Australian sides over the years sported men of astounding physical skill and technical adeptness to back up their brazen lip shooting ways. Mortal geniuses like Lillee and Thomson growled about the batters’ mothers and sisters but backed up the verbal warfare with menacing bouncers to the ribcage. Words were said, no doubt, but the wickedness was more evident in the uncompromising action that followed the same.

James Faulkner looked downright foolish. Poor fellow had a brain fade. That it made very little sense to churn out stupid rants in front of the press before an all-important clash became an epiphany which dawned a tad too late. His likeness to the West Indian players or rather the lack of it was demonstrated effusively by word, but frugally by action.

The entire Australian battalion had to bear the brunt of the Caribbean retaliation to the verbal barb by one of their own lieutenants. More than the embarrassing defeat, the aftermath of the same bore a snub too hard to digest by the men from down under. Australian cricket became a laughing stock. Their patented brand of sledging took a blow on the chin, a dip in stock, resembling more of a pantomime that demanded to be heartily laughed at. Sammy and Co were visibly violent in celebrations if not outrageous, after the game.

A message was being conveyed. The wounded were being massacred with pleasure. More was to follow. Sammy made no effort to hide his pleasure in whacking a guy who apparently got a tad too big for his boots. Gayle echoed the eternal home truth that rules every realm, that to walk the talk, and not to talk a lot. Faulkner looked as good as a flopping fish. He got whacked by his own stick. Rather, the guy received what he asked and deserved.

Cricketers would do good to remember the fine shades between wit and vulgarity, the latter putting under the scanner the very notion of the game being one played by the gentlemen. The Faulkner incident is enough and more alibi to the fact that animosity between teams, if it exists is best off demonstrated on the field rather than through insane jibes through the press. Old James shot himself right on the foot. It was like inviting a stone pelting incident in one’s own backyard and getting hit on the eye by a pellet.