B for beware

The complete failure of our team in the recent home ODI series against Australia drove me to despair. It was quite clear we were coming apart at the seams in all areas of cricket, but nowhere so badly as in the sledging department. I searched desperately for ways of getting through to the Board and the players selected to tour Down Under, hoping to offer them (especially the younger lot) an intensive psych-ops workshop before they left, but there was no way to breach Fortress Team India and its seven-ring security.

What I had done, however, is prepare a programme complete with training modules and I feel it is now time to share some elements of the Workbook with everybody.

Rule # 1: Sledging is not an independent art, it is only one means to an end. The end is the mental mince-meating of the player you are targeting, the aim is to reduce him to a frothing, nervous wreck, incapable of applying any of his skills and talent to the game. You have to bring this about, and there are several different ways to do this.

Rule # 2: As in any area of any sport, the idea is not to play the opposition’s game but to make them play yours. E.g., if they like playing at speed you slow things down, if they like pace you bowl spin, and so forth. Therefore, if your command of current Anglo-Saxon slang isn’t great, do NOT sledge in any recognizable variant of English at people who are masters in the business!

Imagine yourself as an Aussie batsman walking into a ring of players all laughing and sneering, but in Hindi-Punjabi or Tamil-Telugu-Kannada-Malayalam. Constant curry-muncher chatter, all being caught by the stump mike but not a single word in English. And if they take the tape to a translator they should find you discussing favourite recipes that your mothers make for you, but with derisive laughs and snorts thrown in so that it sounds like you are discussing their mothers.

Rule # 3: If the urge to speak in English overcomes you, avoid racist comments and four-letter words at all costs. Avoid them, but learn to make the opposition play in the corridor of uncertainty, which is what the Aussies do quite beautifully. For example, they may call you a really dirty name and then insist that they said ‘runt’ and not another, similar, word. Likewise, with someone like Symonds, don’t go close to anything that can be regarded as racist; everytime he takes guard, just clap and say “C’mon boys, let’s get the Pommie!” (Pommie = Englishman, which is basically what Symonds is since he is an Afro-Caribbean who was brought up in Britain, and it’s absolutely the worst insult you can launch at an Australian cricketer.) Or if you’re feeling really brave, even, “Hey sweetie, your make up looks great today!” (This is best said in a thick and lecherous Haryanvi accent.)

Alternatively, be extremely polite when speaking English, to the point of sheer absurdity. Greet the opposing captain in your best mimicry of Peter Sellers: “Hello, Mr Ponting, sir, how are you this morning? Family alright? We hope you have a good innings today!” and then immediately revert to native lingo (Rule # 2, above) and say to the other close fielder across the pitch “aur meri mausi ki daal na, woh meri MAA n KI daal sey bilkul alag hai, woh jeera bhun ke daalti hai, samajhte HO?”

The larger idea being, at no point do you treat the opposition as your equals. You must make them feel as if there is only one team that belongs on the ground and that is yours. You must make them feel as if they are somewhat extraneous to proceedings, like ballboys at Wimbledon or the guy who waves the flags at a Grand Prix.

Rule # 4: Taking it. You have to be able to zone out the opposition’s chatter when you are playing, especially when you are in the minority of two on the field (also known as ‘batting’). So, you have to practise this in the nets. As you bat, you must get teammates to stand around and throw the worst insults at you between each delivery, relentlessly, and both in the language that you understand best and in English with an Aussie twang. The insults should include comments about your mother, your wife, your children, your sexual preferences, your colour, your religion and your region. There should also be physical comments about your face and body and the deficiencies they carry. You should not only be able to concentrate on the ball through all this, it should become a kind of welcome background noise.

On the flipside, remember that it will be far harder for the other fellow to filter out your chatter because it’s far more disconcerting to have the sneers and laughs pop out of the rough of no context, i.e. a language you don’t understand.

Rule # 5: Physical contact. Avoid. Do not shy away from eyeball to eyeball but do not seek it or initiate it. As for actual touching, the settler countries are very good at physical contact sports such as rugby and Australian Rules football and they will be able to nudge you or shoulder you in hurting ways that you can’t complain about, so don’t go there. Don’t pat the bowler on his backside as he walks back, don’t deliberately barge into batsmen when you’re fielding, and vice versa. You’re Indian, you are there to play cricket, and the only physical contact should be when you (victoriously) shake hands at the end of the game. If the other side tries to rough-house, make sure it’s clearly a one-sided thing and let the TV cameras do the rest. This doesn’t make you less of a man, it makes you an advanced man who understands technology while the opposing troglodytes are still scratching their heads about what those swivelling movie-machines are doing outside the boundary.

Next, a few general areas for study.

Relationship with umpires: Umpires, especially if their names start with a ‘B’, usually belong to Australia, so keep that in mind. You are basically playing against 11 players in white and one coated fellow or, sometimes, disastrously, two guys whose mental space has been shaped into a baggy green cap. They will uphold your appeals from time to time to make it look like a real game, and they will have no choice if they’ve neglected to no-ball you and the stumps are lying in a heap, otherwise forget it. And, when they give you out in some absurd fashion, do not, under any circumstances, stand there; whip around and walk away looking impassive and inscrutable like the Western Oriental you are — that Tendulkar fellow does this very well and you should emulate him, always. Standing there looking like an appalled piece of chewing gum will not bring back your innings; walking away promptly will not mean that you consider yourself out, it will mean “I don’t have to twitch an eyelid, there are several million people watching the slo-mo replay.”

The histrionics of appealing: Appeal only when you are more than 95 per cent sure the umpire’s goose is cooked, i.e., that he has no choice but to test the wind with his index finger. Give the appeal everything you’ve got, but, if it’s turned down, drop the frown and the gape of disbelief completely. By all means grin at the batsman like he’s an incompetent thief let off by an incompetent judge, but show no emotion towards the chap with the walkie-talkie. Never ever do the kind of nautanki, say, Danish Kaneria loves to perform, asking repeatedly well after he’s been told ‘no’. Just as staying there doesn’t get you a not-out decision, lengthening a denied appeal doesn’t get you a wicket.

Occasionally, change your style of appealing and ask a quiet question, as if asking the time or how many deliveries are left in the over, almost as if it’s a formality and you don’t really want to trouble the honourable umpire when the batsman should be scuttling back to the pavilion of his own accord.

Bottom-line — show absolutely no disappointment if the clearest of dismissals are turned down again and again, show no sign that the umpires are getting to you, show no indication that you expected anything other than this farce.

One Final Note:

Even if you’ve done all this and managed to play some decent cricket, you might still find yourself in a tight spot at the end of a match, needing to bat out twelve balls on a fifth-day Sydney pitch. You might find a part-time bowler coming at you with some completely manageable spin. That’s when you remember you’re not an English, South African or West Indian player who can’t play spin. You remember this, and, like a proper descendant of old-fashioned Vijay Merchant and one Sunil Gavaskar, you get to the pitch of the ball and you imperiously tap it away along the ground between fielders, ball after ball, giving the nasally chattering Trogglies and their umpires no whisker of a chance, till it’s time to reluctantly shake hands with them and move to Perth where you know you are bound to win and come back in the series.