‘Sledging is good but no room for abuse’

LONDON : Australia coach Justin Langer insisted “sledging’s a good thing” as the team prepared to face England in their first series since March’s dramatic ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. Langer, however, stressed that “banter” would not be allowed to descend into “abuse”, as captain Tim Paine promised Australia “won’t be silent” during a five-match oneday international series.

Former Australia captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner were banned for a year for their part in the ball-tampering incident during the third Test in Cape Town. Meanwhile batsman Cameron Bancroft — who applied sandpaper to the ball in a clear breach of cricket’s rulebook — was given a nine-month ban by Cricket Australia.

The trio was sent home in disgrace, with wicket-keeper Paine taking over as captain in South Africa. Darren Lehmann then resigned as coach and was replaced by Langer.

After the ball-tampering scandal, there were concerns that sledging or verbal taunts had contributed to a toxic atmosphere between the Australia and South Africa teams.

But Langer said that, as far as he was concerned, sledging was just another word for banter.

“In Australia sledging’s a good thing: if I play Uno (a card game) with my daughter we sledge each other,” Langer told a news conference at Lord’s on Wednesday.

“If I play golf with my parents, we sledge each other. There’s a difference between banter and abuse. There’s no room for abuse anywhere,” the former Australia opener, who played at Lord’s for Middlesex, added.

“Even if we were so nice people would think we’re a bunch of hard-edged Australians.

“We’ll still be called sledging Australians, it’s been happening for the last 30 years. So we’ll cope with that.”

Paine, alongside Langer at Lord’s, explained: “The thing we’ve spoken about is the difference between abuse and banter.”