My passion for watching England play cricket has reached fever-pitch. Having been in my element watching the first two tests of this year's Ashes series, I find myself in a state of mourning awaiting the third test. The first two tests were played with a short gap between them, 2 or 3 days. This time the gap is 10 days!
My behaviour, worryingly, is having a knock-on effect on the house and in particular my 7 year old son. H came into the lounge yesterday dressed in full cricket whites, pads, helmet and carrying his bat.
'Why are you wearing all that? There's no cricket on today.' I lamented.
'I just wanted to remember that it is one week until the third test starts.' H enthused, wincing as he adjusted his cricket box.
To fill the gap between tests I have been reading everything and anything cricket. One of my favourites was an article about 'sledging'- the art of verbally insulting or intimidating an opposing batsman. According to the BBC's Pat Murphy: "My understanding is that it came from the mid-sixties and a guy called Graham Calling, who used to open the bowling for New South Wales and Australia... apparently the suggestion was that this guy's wife was [having an affair] with another team-mate, and when he came into bat [the fielding team] started singing 'When a Man Loves A Woman', the old Percy Sledge number."
There are differing stories about how the term 'sledging' came about, but the practice itself has been around forever. The thing with sledging is that you need to be able to back it up. It's like a boxer telling everyone at the press conference how he is going to destroy his opponent, only to be knocked out himself in the first round.
Take for example Greg Thomas, a genuinely quick bowler, but erratic. Greg was bowling at the great Sir Viv Richards- voted by Wisden as the greatest One Day International batsman ever and third greatest test batsman.
Having beaten Viv's bat on two successive bowls Greg got a bit over excited and in doing so over-extended himself by offering the following advice to Sir Viv:
"It's red, it's round and it weighs about five ounces, in case you're wondering." Greg announced smugly.
Now that is exactly the wrong thing to say to a batsman of Sir Viv's quality. On the next ball Sir Viv hit the ball out of the ground and into a nearby river.
"Well Greg, you know what it looks like. Go and find it." Sir Viv retorted.
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