Why Australia’s new era means smarter sledging

Verbals to Jason Roy prove the tourists have not lost all their old bite under their new leaders

It was a clever sledge and a sign of how the verbals can be effective if used properly. Two balls before Jason Roy got out playing a big shot at Old Trafford on Sunday, Tim Paine, the Australia captain, was picked up by the stump mics needling one of England’s dangermen.

“You think you’ve won the World Cup already, don’t ya?” No abuse. Just banter. And it worked. Roy was bowled trying to smash Ashton Agar into the stands.

Paine (pictured) played on the batsman’s ego, and expect plenty of Australians to do the same over the next 12 months. They know England are vulnerable when they are super-confident and prone to getting ahead of themselves.

It is why Joe Root, Jos Buttler and Eoin Morgan are so important as the cool heads in the middle order. But Paine’s sledge was revealing for another reason. It showed Australia do not have to get personal and abusive.

This tour was partly about changing public perception of an Australian cricketing culture broken open by ball tampering. Paine will probably never lead another one-day tour. He admitted as much on Sunday.

However, he will be back to captain Australia in England for the Ashes next summer and has shown on this tour we can expect them to play hard but without the win-at-all costs mentality that brought down Steve Smith and David Warner.

Clearly, it is hard to be vocal when you are being hammered as Australia have been over the past few weeks. This is a young team, too, but Paine and Justin Langer have started the rebuilding process and there has been noticeably less aggro than usual contests between England and Australia.

It is why the abuse from the crowds never happened. The English fans have been respectful towards Australia in a way that would not happen if roles were reversed. Sure, one-day matches do not have the cache of an Ashes Test and there are no pantomime villains in this Australian team for the crowd to target, but apart from some lame attempts to hand out sandpaper four and six cards in the first game at the Oval, Australia have been treated no differently to other teams.

Off the field, Langer has started to introduce a new culture. The players visited First World War battlefields on the way to England. It is not a new idea. Langer did it himself before Ashes tours in 2001 and 2005. The visit had been

The new coach has reinforced the importance of behaving when on duty for country

planned for a long time and was endorsed by Darren Lehmann and Smith before their falls from office.

It was a three-day trip, much longer than previous visits, and the players wore their own clothes rather than the team travel kit, emblazoned with sponsors’ logos. Langer added his own touch, as it was arranged for each player to receive a personalised letter, handed to them in Ypres. Addressed to them by name, the handwriting on the envelope would have looked familiar before they opened it.

Langer had asked the parents of each player to write a letter telling their son of their pride at them playing for Australia and what it means to represent your country.

Reading this at a place where thousands of Australians died fighting a war, and so soon after the ball-tampering crisis questioned the whole culture of Australian cricket, left the players in no doubt what would be expected of them from now on.

Langer reinforced the importance of behaving properly when on duty for your country. It moved younger and older players alike.

His first step when arriving in England was to arrange for a squad run in Kensington Gardens. They only went as quickly as the slowest runner. Stay together, we are a team was the message.

Langer has intensified training, as you would expect from a fitness freak. Players who have toured before have never experienced such tough sessions.

Most coaches start that way and then level out once the message has been hammered home.

This tour has been a learning experience for Australia. Their attack has been hammered and their batsmen have to find better methods against spin than relying on charging down and smashing it like they do on flat wickets at home. The one-day series has shown that Smith and, in particular, David Warner, are too good to be left out of the side on moral grounds alone.

Expect them both to be back in England next year but only if they play Langer’s way. A letter might be in the post already.