wpdavid
Hall of Fame Member
Fair enough - I'm not familiar enough with SS's works to comment.
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Absolute disgrace
- Thread starter ankitj
- Start date
silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
Err, no. I've explained this numerous times.
If I was a player, I'd be sledging left and right, saying whatever came into my mind, progressively worse, until someone told me not to do it. Then I'd try to find a way around it because of the slap-on-the-wrist type punishment you get anyway. It works. I don't have a problem with players doing this. If the administration is allowing you to behave like that and it helps you win, go for it.
I have a problem with allowing it (e.g, the administrators of the game). But you can't blame the players at all, as they are merely taking advantage of the lax enforcement of rules - and obviously they want to win, so they'll take any advantage they can.
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benchmark00
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So why do you want to blunt the players' competitive instincts?
silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
My competitive instincts may mean I want to block the batsmen when they are running between the wickets. But I can't because it's not allowed. It'd just be another rule. To imply that the West Indies team (for example) of the 70s/80s didn't have competitive instincts (or it was 'blunted') because it didn't sledge is ridiculous.
benchmark00
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You believe the Windies didn't seldge?
Either way, if you openly acknowledge that sledging heightens the competitiveness, why would you want to take it out?
If you outlawed sledging, surely it is less competitive than if sledging is allowed by your reasoning alone (the fact that you would sledge).
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silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
From all accounts, no. I mean a few words once in a while but not sledging as we know it right now. They did not. Pretty much every autobiography I've read that approaches the subject agrees on this point, though I'd be genuinely interested in evidence to the contrary.
benchmark00
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You replied to me before I edited to include the crux of the issue itbt.
silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
I don't know that it heightens competitiveness - at that elite level, you really don't have to do anything to get people to compete hard. People generally don't make it to the Test level without pushing themselves to the limit.
It does gives you an advantage if you can get the other player off his game - just like a bunch of things would - doesn't mean we allow all of them. Making the sightscreen flash seizure-inducing colors as the bowler is running in would give you a competitive advantage - doesn't mean we ought to legalize it.
Anyway, we've gone way off tangent. I didn't mean to start this debate again.
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Jono
Virat Kohli (c)
Your signature once read "shut up and play the game"
silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
And I wish laws were such that this happened.....
Jono
Virat Kohli (c)
silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
Well, no...if it ended there, but we both know that's not true. In any case, I don't have a 'problem'. On a scale of one to ten, this would clock in at about a two. That's why I didn't want to harp on it, it's not a major issue for me. I find it funny more than anything how these faux-tough guys can get in people's faces knowing that there is no chance it'll escalate. It's like being an internet tough guy - acting tough knowing there is no chance you'll have to actually do anything about it. It's like bullying a kid that's smaller than you and can't fight back. Yea, you're real tough hiding behind those words. As GIMH so eloquently said (though from the opposite side 
) - small dick syndrome indeed. Someone needs to be body slammed - that little Australian kid style.
) - small dick syndrome indeed. Someone needs to be body slammed - that little Australian kid style.
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benchmark00
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Started reading the Matthew Hayden autobiography the other day. Put it off for so long because I find him annoying, but there's a good chapter on seldging at the start of the book. Basically says it's a part of a performance. Each person in a team has a role, in the same way actors do in a movie. Was a good way of explaining it.
silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
Exactly.
benchmark00
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Yeah but that just backs up our point that it adds to the game and heightens competitiveness without being ridiculous like your sight screen analogy.
honestbharani
Whatever it takes!!!
As SS said, not everything that allows a sportsperson to show off his competitiveness should necesarily be legalized... The line has to be drawn somewhere.. And honestly, insulting a person is diff. to insulting his mother/wife.. I would love my mom way too much for some dumbass **** player from the opposition to be mouthing her off and me to not react violently...
benchmark00
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I can honestly say that in all my years of playing cricket I have never heard someone say something about my mother...
That's ridiculous, what you're talking about itsn't sledging as such. It's just insults. Sledging is talking about the game and trash talking about it.
Why you'd want to take away that mental side of the game is beyond me. It makes scoring a hundred so much sweeter when you've done it with the oposition throwing everything at you.
BoyBrumby
Englishman
I'd say from my experience 99% of what gets called "sledging" is stuff about the game. In fact, a lot is talking to your teammates for the benefit of the oppo. Nuggets like "good areas", "like it" or "he's not picking you". It's basically harmless, just chatter to try to sow a seed of doubt.
If anyone said something like "Your mother sucks sailors for loose change" he'd just look a ****.
Might be worse at higher levels, I dunno.
If anyone said something like "Your mother sucks sailors for loose change" he'd just look a ****.
Might be worse at higher levels, I dunno.
benchmark00
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The stuff about your mother is more likely to be found at the lower levels than anything. So you're exactly right.
