“It is far more than a game, this Cricket” - Sir Neville Cardus
“The Australian public has a line, too. And with their culture of sledging, whingeing, hypocrisy and arrogance, our cricketers have been head-butting it for so long that they have become an insufferable national migraine” - Bryon Coverdale, Australian journalist
The fundamental nature of cricket being a gentleman’s game is memorialized in the preamble to the MCC's laws of cricket relating to "the spirit of the game," which make it a breach "to direct abusive language towards an opponent or an umpire" or "to seek to distract an opponent either verbally or by harassment with persistent clapping or unnecessary noise under the guise of enthusiasm and motivation of one's own side."
Australian players are by far the chief culprits who front up to their opponents like street thugs, chins thrust out aggressively, the adrenalin pumping, are you talkin' to me attitude. Their abuse on the field was so gross that South African batsman and captain, Faf du Plessis, said they were like a “pack of wild dogs,” while former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe decried their “thuggish" behavior. However, Australian authorities have been unwilling to clamp down on them, but now the wheels have fallen off.
"I think a lot of what they're copping at the moment comes from the way they have played their game," England’s coach Bayliss, an Australian, said. "It's almost like teams and people around the world have been waiting for them to stuff up so they can lay the boot in. I don't think you can say when any culture has changed. It's one of those things that continually, over a period of time, builds and builds and unfortunately on this occasion it's gone too far… including the Cameron Bancroft-Jonny Bairstow head butt incident in Perth.”
Steve Waugh started it all as captain, with his ''mental disintegration'' of the opposing team after Ian Chappell inaugurated modern sledging. Although he was a tough, uncompromising captain, attitudes have sunk way below the line he drew, although his physical assault on Vic Insanally at Bourda, and his baring of his naked butt (“mooning”) to Sir Don Bradman almost terminated an otherwise impressive career.
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