No sledging as Oz play nice
‘We’re allowed to have a chat. There’s no swearing,’ he pleaded
The great era of cricket verbals Down Under is at an end as a shamed nation launches a charm offensive, writes Jim White.
In this time of uncertainty, doubt and discord, there was one thing we thought we could rely on: Australia’s cricketers’ unyielding ability to badmouth opponents.
Whole books have been written about their vocal skills, documentary series commissioned extolling their comic extemporising. These have long been the lords of the one-liner, the masters of the riposte. Generations of opponents’ knees have buckled at the power of their put-downs.
Now it seems we cannot even cling to that assurance. In the latest Test series against India, Australia’s wicketkeeper/captain Tim Paine was caught on the stump microphone attempting a sledge of his opposite number, Virat Kohli.
Except he did not say anything to the great batsman himself. He waited until Kohli was out before delivering a stage whisper to Murali Vijay: “I know he’s your captain but you can’t seriously like him as a bloke.”
To which the only response is: really? An enfeebled third-party whine: is that the best you can do? Australian captains used to be hewn from far grittier verbal stock.
This, after all, is the nation whose captain, Bill Woodfull, during the Bodyline series, responded to Douglas Jardine’s outraged complaint that a fielder had called him a b — — — with the magnificent query of his teammates: “Now which of you b — — — - called this b — — —ab———?”
One captain even created a psychological theory around relentless aural assault and battery. Steve Waugh called the practice “mental disintegration”.
Ahead of next summer’s renewal of hostilities, Paine’s feeble snark will not exactly have the England players rushing to pen letters to Father Christmas asking for a set of earplugs to be popped into their stockings. This was thin gruel indeed.
Though perhaps, even in its lack of heft, his remark did serve as a reflection of the times. Such was the fallout from the national trauma of the ball-tampering shenanigans that before the series with India began, Australian cricket had been making very public noises about doing things differently. A self-parodying set of new principles was published, filled with vacuous invitations such as: “Compete with us. Smile with us. Dream with us.” Paine himself had said before the series that “gaining the respect of our country and fans is as high a priority as winning”.
The new broom of a captain had clearly gone into the match full of exemplary intentions. Yet it seems that as soon as hostilities got under way, he could not help himself.
Faced with Kohli’s haughty condescension, he responded. Though almost as soon as he opened his mouth, he tried, pitifully, to backtrack.
When the umpire, hearing his verbals picked up on the new, all-pervasive stump mic, told him to pipe down, Paine sounded like a schoolboy caught chatting in class. “We’re allowed to have a conversation. There’s no swearing,” he pleaded.
Merv Hughes would have shot straight back that that was the kind of thing the umpire’s wife would say in bed.
Instead, Paine made us witness to a new phenomenon: an Australian captain insisting that he was not swearing. Frankly, the game’s gone.