Sledging - Does it Work

[Migara]

I've tracked down an old Facebook post of Migara's from when he lived in Ireland.

Rather mouthful / earful. I keep it very quiet.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Mind the windows is one of the best sledges in recent times.

 

[Gnske]

Ishant Sharma's work the last few years has been magnificent tbh.

 

[ImpatientLime]

Mind the windows is one of the best sledges in recent times.

it was funny but tino best is a straight up moron who requires very little effort to rile up. have you seen the way that bloke behaves on twitter?

 

[Gnske]

i remember his twitter years ago being entirely jesus oriented

 

[Line and Length]

While umpiring I witnessed an amusing exchange that might not qualify as sledging but was just as effective.

A young batsman was getting a constant stream of advice from his senior batting partner. "Get behind it." "Get your back foot across" "Leave those!" etc etc.

Eventually the bowler, a strapping Yorkshireman playing club cricket in the Oz summer, asked the youngster. "Is he your Dad or summit? Does he nag you at home like this? Have you got a mind of your own? Play your own game!" Next ball the youngster flashed at a wide-ish delivery and was caught behind.

 

[SteveNZ]

TBF, of the fab 4 of bowling, I guess Bumrah and Cummins are great examples of folks who don't need to sledge to be successful. But then again Rabada and Jofra seem rather intent on sledging even if it is for no purpose. And I guess Warne has successfully gotten into the head of Starc so much that he seems to sledge every player nowadays.

Yeah, and the difference between Bumrah/Cummin to Archer and Rabada is the fabric of them as people. Bumrah and Cummins seem to be at ease with the world, genuinely good people who have no need to project unhappiness onto the world. Rabada and Jofra seem to have massive chips on their shoulder. Same with Starc. Starc was giving weak send offs well before Warne decided the only way to be a better fast bowler was to talk **** - not, you know, bowl fast and accurately, and let the big bloody 156gram object do the work.

 

[SteveNZ]

Is that because you don't work in sales?

I worked in sales for many years. Sports related too.

 

[SteveNZ]

You haven’t addressed the point though. Like I said, I agree with your original sentiment but the idea of “drawing a line” is implicit in your post, and I think it’s very difficult if not impossible to do it.

As for the balance of the thread, it’s provided some genuine laughter at Migara’s efforts. Woeful contributions

OK fair enough - isn't drawing the line something that is implicit in every aspect of life though? Especially when it's governed by a moral code as well as a legal code, as cricket clearly is? Is it impossible to do? Well yeah it is when people's 'line' varies so wildly. That line varies country to country as well. Where my line exists, is where it's outside the bounds of what would be socially permissible in other environments. That's why I used the sales analogy. I've got no trouble with gamesmanship, with mentally trying to get to someone. I'm not Mother Theresa, I believe that if you can get your own way mentally, without purposely disintegrating the other part, then that's fine. But I'd never advocate getting someone out by making them angry, upset, disillusioned whatever by personally attacking them.

Where Starc went with telling Raval he'd lose his job for Boxing Day, I didn't have a problem with that. If he'd called him a useless C who didn't deserve to be near a Test field, then to me that's the wrong way to go about it. I totally agree with Flem, Malcolm Marshall could have lost the 'kill you' part of going round the wicket and it would have been just as effective. It's also more clever, less low brow.

But I also get that it's subjective and that's only my opinion.

 

[Line and Length]

Just read about a sledge that was effective.

1998 Finals, Chicago Bulls down by 1. Karl ‘Mailman’ Malone on the free-throw line, with two shots.

It was a Sunday.

Scottie Pippen walks past Malone and says “The mailman doesn’t deliver on Sunday.”

Malone misses both free throws.

Michael Air Jordan hits the game winner.

Game over.

 

[Engle]

A sledge that backfired was in 1983, India vs W.Indies.

Gavaskar came out to bat at 4, with 2 wickets down for 0 runs. Viv taunted him " Maan, don't matter if you come in 1 or 4, the score still be 0 "
Sunny went on to score 236*, his highest Test innings