Count to ten

Silly me; I shouldn't have reacted the way I did to Foriger's comment on the "Go the sledge" post below. There is something a little flamewar-like in my response when, in retrospect, a far more reasoned (and sensible, and to the point) response could have been made. So lets try again (foriger, if you're reading this, please reply!).

When the "Australian cricketing culture" is invoked, its worth noting that there is no one canonical definition of that cricketing culture. For instance while "playing hard but fair" notion is taken to be an essential part of that which say, includes not walking, it has its own exceptions as in no less a person than Adam Gilchrist, who while perceived as an exception was not ridiculed, or castigated for not understanding the very culture that had produced him. As another example, in Oz, in any cricket game that involves batting teams supplying their own umpires, it is understood that batsmen should walk. If they don't they are a bunch of wankers (they expose their buddy, who is umpiring to ridicule if he gets it wrong, because then he is accused of cheating). Thats part of the culture too. So, its not too perspicuous to invoke an entire culture when there are so many variations within it, and to speak as if there is one monolithic entity out there that is being addressed. My "Three Myths" note was meant to point out how certain myths were being propagated when clearly plenty of Australians didn't believe in those maxims themselves. Thats all. Plenty of Australians have, in the years following the ascendancy of Border's 89-ers, accused their cricketers of not having shown adequate "class or civility". Thats Australians speaking, not me. Plenty of them found the "few jibes" to be lacking in class and civility as well, and wished instead that the real banter, light-hearted, and yet not abusive, take center-stage. Setting up some ordering in which turning up late for a toss is well below calling batsmen names or asking about their personal lives when they come out to bat is simply arbitrary and simply reveals a prior bias.

As for the second point, lets leave that aside, because its irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I never said sledging improved anyone's game out on the field. India won the 2001 series because of VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh; Australia won the World Cup because they outplayed India on the day.