The aggressive approach will be easier to adopt if they bat first in Bangalore.  This will be their chance to see off Brett Lee and then launch a savage attack on the spinners.  If they win this battle, they will win the series.  Simple as that.  India must be prepared to be brave.

Sehwag and Gambhir will bat the way they know how.  The runs will flow quickly.  Where the momentum might slow is if Dravid or Tendulkar are slow to get into their stride.  Players like Laxman, Yuvraj, Ganguly and Dhoni will keep the scoreboard ticking over at a healthy rate but if Dravid gets stuck, the Aussies might be let off the hook.

Make no mistake – Australia are bereft of decent spinning options.  Krezja’s mauling in Hyderabad was a calculated gamble that has done enormous favours to the Indian team.  He’s gone from being the first-choice spinner to possibly not even making the team for the First Test.  That will leave Cameron White with the senior spinning duties and that is a role he does not even play for his home state.  On Indian pitches, that sort of weakness should not be allowed to go unpunished.

Australia will set defensive fields and try to tempt the Indians into allowing their ego’s to get the better of them.  India needs to realise that boundaries are not the only answer to dominating a bowling attack.  In fact, with upto 4 fielders in the deep, there will be ample opportunity to rotate the strike with minimum risk.  This is where Dravid needs to improve his game.

Dhoni has a role to play too.  His deft touches and innovative strokeplay can hurt a tired team late in the day so long as he stays positive.  He will need his lower order to bat sensibly with him.  One suspects that Kumble and Harbajhan are now confident enough to take on some responsibility with the bat.  It is this sort of late rally that can transform a competitive 400 into a matchwinning 550.  You can guarantee that the Aussie tail will not give up their wickets lightly.

On the bowling front, my prediction is that two left-handers will play a big role – Zaheer Khan and Murali Kartik.  If they can both bring recent good form to the party, Australia might underestimate them at their own peril.  Whether Kartik gets in the final XI or not is still undecided but good left-arm orthodox has always troubled Australia.  Hayden and Hussey will sweep him mercilessly but the right-handers will struggle against him.

India also have the advantage of in-form, confident players waiting on the sidelines.  Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Wasim Jaffer are all ready to take any chance.  Their hunger will no doubt spur the ageing Fab Four into making sure that no door is left ajar.  India’s selectors are likely to be ruthless if someone starts poorly.

India’s all-rounders provide good depth to the bowling too.  Sehwag and Tendulkar both have roles to play in breaking partnerships.  India’s catching will prove crucial.  Hayden and Ponting don’t need second chances.
It promises to be riveting viewing and the team that wins will be the team that plays to win.  Australia are at their most vulnerable right now and if India does not capitalise on that, they will be missing a major opportunity.  I’m predicting an Indian series victory because I think the Indians won’t make the mistake of sitting back and waiting for things to happen.

We’ve covered some interesting territory and it’s clear which side of the fence I sit on.  In all honesty, it hasn’t been much of a debate because I haven’t presented both sides of the argument.  There’s a good reason for that – I can’t think of any justification for the other perspective!

Some people try to justify the practice by claiming that it tests the mental strength of a cricketer.  This is probably the most convincing argument of the lot.  I cannot dispute that fact.  Sledging does indeed test the victim and it can be a terribly daunting experience.  Those who thrive in those circumstances are indeed mentally tough but like all forms of bullying, the main problem is that it tends to turn victims into bullies themselves.  Some of the worst sledgers I have come across are those who claim they were sledged (either in that game or sometime in the past) and they are merely returning the compliment.  It becomes an ever-increasing game of tit-for-tat where the stakes keep getting raised.

The other great macho contradiction can be heard if you ask a serial offender if he himself is affected by sledging.  They will all claim that sledging has no impact on them whatsoever, presumably because they are too tough to be scarred by it.  Why then do these same people think that others get affected by being sledged?  It harks back again to this ‘hard man syndrome’ where they refuse to admit that sledging affects them but readily think that it affects anyone that they inflict sledging on.

Then there’s the old beauty:  “what happens on the field stays on the field”.  This clearly is Fools Paradise because we’ve seen plenty of incidents where white line fever has spilt over the boundary line.  Darren Lehman’s infamous racial outburst against the Sri Lankan team in 2003 at the Gabba was made in the dressing room tunnel.

Steve Waugh, apparently not shy of a quiet word himself on the field, once complained that he was being sledged by the pro-Queensland crowd in an interstate match vs NSW.  I can’t see how it’s OK to endorse “mental disintegration” on the field but not be able to take it from the crowd who are merely copying what they see from their heroes.

One must of course be careful not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Cricket has always been a game of great humour and dry wit.  In an effort to rid ourselves of the sledging cancer, we must be careful to ensure we don’t sacrifice the genuinely funny moments.  I myself have been the victim of many a humorous sledge and have had to stop the bowler from running in to control my laughter.  I’m certainly not advocating a game that loses it’s spirit but so long as both parties can appreciate the funny side, victim and perpetrator, there should be an element of commonsense and maturity to this debate.

The bottom line for me has always been the issue of the quintessential battle between bat and ball.  If I’m not good enough to beat my opponent with skill, good luck to him.  Cricketing skill rates higher (in my book) than an ability to put somebody off their game with verbal volleys.  I’m not interested in who can sledge better – I’m interested in who can bat, bowl or field better.  Isn’t that what cricket is ultimately about?

The final word should belong to an erstwhile friend of mine, ex-SAS soldier who was being sledged by a mouthy wicketkeeper until he turned around and innocently asked “I say old chap, what do you do for a living”.  The keeper replied back smartly with “I’m a stockbroker in the City of London” but he soon shut up when my friend quietly said “well, I kill people for a living.  So kindly shut up.”

Funnily enough, our wicketkeeper friend had a sudden attack of laryngitis after that warning.  Tellingly, his glovework actually improved!

I beg to differ.  It’s actually not part of the game.  I can’t see anything in the rules of cricket that refers to sledging being a part of the game.  In fact, Law 42 actually legislates against such practices.  In the sub-section on fair & unfair play, it clearly lists anything that brings the game into disrepute as “cheating”.  No one will convince me that sledging is reputable.  At best, it can be funny.  At worst, it is downright bad manners or cheating.

The “it’s all part of the game” mantra is then one of those things that seems to have just gained legitimacy just because people say it often enough.  It ranks up there with one of Australian cricket’s favourite excuses – “it’s a man’s game”.

This is a particularly clever psychological ploy because what it does is to place the victim of sledging in a no-win situation.  They must either put up with being sledged or risk having their manhood questioned if they complain.  I’ve heard it said many times when someone objects to being abused on the field and then cops the inevitable question marks over his masculinity and toughness.  It’s an almost frontier-style definition of manhood, more at home in the old tales of the Wild West or gangster movies.

Since when did the ability to give or receive abuse, merely because one plays for the opposition team in what is meant to be a ‘sport’, make you more of a man?  Is that what being a real man is all about?  Cricket has some ancient traditions, built on the bedrock of being a gentleman’s game and this sort of attitude makes a mockery of that legacy.

Some cricketers claim that they engage in sledging because it helps to fire them up.  They apparently need this artificial stimulus to lift their games to the next level.  In the case of professional cricketers, especially at international level, this argument astounds me.  Do you really need an excuse to get fired up when you’re playing for your country?  I would have thought that the mere honour and privilege of wearing national colours would be enough.  In fact, one would almost expect that they’d need something to calm them down so that they don’t get over-stimulated.

I remember reading somewhere that the great Allan Border, when he was struggling to get into his stride, deliberately instigated an incident in order to get sledged back and this brought out the best in him.

The other great myth is that sledging is just part of some players’ psyche and they can’t help themselves.  When the competitive juices flow, it acts as an adrenalin rush to help them find an extra 10%.

Why is it then that the best sledgers in the game seem to be very selective about who they target?  It’s common knowledge that players like Tendulkar, Lara and Dravid are left alone because sledging brings out the best in them.  That defeats the argument that sledging is an automatic response that is triggered when you need an extra lift.  Surely this is when you need that extra filip, when these great players are digging in for a big innings.  This excuse is nothing but a cowardly admission that it is a deliberate ploy, used to unsettle some players and not others.  Nothing ‘automatic’ about this – it’s a calculated strategy which constitutes “unfair play” (Law 42).

As I write this piece, I keep thinking of more inconsistencies and flaws in the logic of the pro-sledging camp.  At all levels, it keeps coming back to the fact that it is unnecessary and unseemly.  It’s undignified.  And cowardly.

Tune in for the next instalment….

Moving on….the way I see it, the issue gets clouded when people start drawing arbitrary lines in the sand about acceptable and unacceptable levels of sledging.  Personal comments are apparently off limits, especially if it borders on being racist.  Surely all sledging, by it’s very nature, if it is meant to hurt, distract or unsettle an opponent, has to be personal doesn’t it?  What’s the point in sledging somebody if it is not personal and doesn’t hurt?

The great irony of course is that the most cutting sledges are indeed personal and the standard defence when challenged is “don’t take it personally”.  How else was one meant to take it?  There doesn’t seem to be much point in calling someone a coward who doesn’t like facing fast bowlers if the intended victim is not meant to take it personally.  Why sledge at all if it’s not meant to be personal?

Professional cricket of course has this new mantra that it is now a high-stakes job and is no longer a gentle amateur pursuit played for simple pleasures.  They justify sledging and “mental disintegration” by claiming that it is a workplace where the niceties of cricket’s ancient traditions no longer belong.

This argument falls down though if one takes that position and analyses it more closely.  OK, so if it is a workplace, perhaps the on-field behaviour needs to reflect what is acceptable in a workplace.  I can’t think of too many conventional work environments that legitimise verbal abuse of competitors or colleagues.  If I turned up to my job and started calling someone vile names to distract them from their task, it wouldn’t be long before I would be in the ranks of the recently unemployed.

Confronted with that logic, the pro-sledging camp reverts back to “it’s just a game”.  Well, which is it?  Is it a game (bound by common rules of decency) or is it a workplace (governed by normal rules of professional behaviour)?  How long will it be, in today’s litigious environment, when some cricketer sues for workplace harassment?  Is he justified in so doing?

Then there’s the other great defence, much favoured by those who subscribe to so-called ‘white line fever’.  That defences centres around the notion that what happens on the field stays on the field.  Noble thoughts indeed but why do we accept that philosophy so blindly?  If it is unacceptable to sledge somebody in normal life situations, off the field, what is the magical ingredient that transforms the cricket pitch into a quarantine zone?  Surely, if it’s only a game, we should be less inclined to abuse a competitor?  It’s less important than real life is it not?

Taking that argument one step further, if I wanted to abuse somebody, could I place six sticks on a 22 yard piece of turf and then create an environment where it is now more legitimate to dish out verbal violence than a restaurant or shopping centre?  I simply don’t see how the sledging argument can be justified on any grounds.

This debate has a lot longer to run I feel.  I’m looking forward to more bloggers writing in, even if they want to sledge me for my old-fashioned views.  I won’t take it personally!

This topic is so fascinating that it allows me to construct a two-part essay.

For an old-fashioned chap like myself, this sort of leadership is to be warmly applauded.  For too long, cricket has allowed itself to tolerate standards of behaviour that has continued to drag the benchmark down lower and lower.  As with all vices, once something is grudgingly accepted as permissible, it is not long before it loses shock value.  A few years later, that becomes the new watermark and standards drop even lower until that becomes the next level and so on.

The Gold Coast Cricket Association is taking a stance against ugly on-field behaviour. Triggered by a spate of ‘incidents’ in their local competition, they are bringing in a red/yellow card system to try to stamp out racism and violence.  Good on ‘em.

Ultimately though, this sort of system is unlikely to be successful anywhere in the world unless some common misconceptions are removed.  For example, the unfortunate (perhaps unwitting) comment that “Although acceptable, there are levels of sledging that are not acceptable - like when it gets personal”.

Therein lies the problem.  As long as some ‘sledging’ is deemed acceptable, this problem will never go away.  It just becomes a matter of personal definition as to what sort of insult is deemed offensive and hurtful and what isn’t.  Who decides?

Why is racist sledging any more offensive than any other form of abuse?  If we are reduced to debating the merits of different types of insults and their level of offensiveness, it defeats the purpose.  The recent Symonds, Harbajhan, Hogg incident is a perfect example.  Whatever Symonds said upset Harbajhan enough to trigger his retort and then Hogg was later found guilty of calling someone a “bastard”.  We had the ridiculous situation then when all parties were trying to defend themselves by claiming that what they said was highly offensive but not racist.  Symonds refused to admit whatever it was he said to start the avalanche so it can be assumed that it wasn’t particularly flattering.  Harbajhan’s defence would have been funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.  Apparently “motherf****r” is less indecent than “monkey”.  In Hogg’s case, the fact that his insult is apparently a common term of endearment in his culture tells its own sad story of shame.

See what I mean?  Unless sledging is outlawed universally, merely banning certain types of sledging is like saying “it’s ok to kill someone with a machine gun but not with a machete”.  One man’s insult may be another man’s joke.  What amuses me today may mortally wound me tomorrow.  It’s all a matter of context, situation and circumstance.

Don’t believe me?  Think back to the infamous McGrath/Sarwan incident a few years ago when McGrath’s crude jibe sparked a clever but equally tasteless retort (pun intended!!) from Sarwan which referred to McGrath’s wife.  Perhaps on any other day or to any other player, that comment may have even been funny.  However, to a man whose wife was just undergoing cancer treatment, Sarwan’s sledge cut to the bone and it all kicked off.  Where was the clear line in the sand here to tell these players where to draw the line?  Initially, Sarwan was roundly criticised for going too far until a sheepish McGrath later admitted that he fired the first crude salvo and that Sarwan was unaware of his wife’s illness.

The first way to try to resolve this conundrum is to try to define what is sledging and what constitutes (acceptable) gamesmanship.  That is not an easy task but if we can somehow get past that hurdle, the job becomes a bit easier.  Ban sledging (by that definition) but allow friendly, clever banter that keeps some of the spirit and humour in the game.  If we can’t agree on the difference between sledging and banter, that underscores my original point.  Who defines “acceptable”?

The other option of course is to simply declare open slather and allow cricketers free rein to define their own invisible standards.  Anarchy will rule but at least it will be an open battle.  Racism won’t be the only weapon of choice.

Is this what cricket has evolved into?  For a game that has left it’s own indelible mark on the English language itself, with cliches like “it’s just not cricket”, it will be a sad day indeed if we decide to leave the moral code to the survival of the fittest.  Or the ugliest.  Or the fattest.  Or the dumbest.

I’m looking forward to reading your comments to help drive the sequel to this piece……just be careful how you insult me!

Hindsight offers some wonderful glimpses that seem so obvious but were still ignored a few weeks ago.  South Africa now look like a team low on inspiration and genuine class.  Mind you, that is easier to say in the aftermath of a whitewash.  The signs were there but somehow, it was easier to believe the rankings than to back instinct.

Kallis failed to play an innings of any substance to anchor a shaky middle order but more tellingly, he is beginning to look ponderous and ungainly.  He was never a genuine dasher but there was always an upright elegance about his batting that looked nothing like the flat-footed slashes that sometimes sliced through point but often finished up caught behind.  There must now be questions about his ability to hold down a regular ODI spot although his pedigree should allow him the luxury of one poor series.

Not so forgiving I fear for Herschelle Gibbs.  Unless he scores heavily in his next few innings, assuming he gets another chance, we may well have seen the last of his easy brilliance.  History will probably record him as an under-achiever, perhaps unfairly but in its own way, it is a backhanded compliment.  He rarely looks out of touch until he gets out, often to a seemingly careless shot.  Like Mark Waugh, Gibbs may suffer from making the game look easy and his mistakes look worse in that context.

I’m not sure what the South African depth is like but the solidity of Ashwell Prince may be too hard to ignore.  Smith will score runs again, as will De Villiers but the rest of the batting now looks a bit thin, as evidenced by the sudden call for Kolpak players to return.

England’s batting on the other hand was just one good story after another.  Pryor and Bell provided some rollicking starts in a very Un-England like fashion, which allowed Shah, Pietersen and Flintoff to shine.  Flintoff especially was a great sight to see, mixing deft touches with his customary power.  His ability to finish off an innings without throwing his wicket away needlessly was particularly impressive.  It will take that sort of effort to turn England into consistent winners.

The bowling too was nothing short of inspirational.  Stuart Broad’s performance at Trent Bridge in the second ODI was truly magical, ruined only slightly by Nel’s agricultural heaves in the last over of that magnificent spell.  Harmison was the surprise packet that SA probably never expected – his pace and hostility were never in doubt but his ability to keep the radar on track must have pleased Otis Gibson (bowling coach).  Will he carry that form overseas or should he just be wrapped in cotton wool for the Ashes next year?

Flintoff was his usual self – accurate, hostile, inspirational and cheery.  It’s hard to dislike anyone who plays the game so hard and still does it with a smile.  It just goes to show that being a hard man is not about being an ugly man.  He is a wonderful advertisement for the game.

The SA bowling was diabolical at times.  Ntini showed his age but none of the skills that experience should bring.  Steyn kept trying but the harder he tried, the further he went.  He looked one-dimensional at times.  Botha was steady but one cannot see the Africans winning a major tournament on his back.  Morne Morkel provided the only real ray of sunshine – disconcerting bounce and pace will always trouble even good players.

England finish the summer looking forward to their winter tour of India, riding the crest of a wave that has the talismanic Pietersen and Flintoff at the top.  South Africa looks like a surfer that has been dumped by that same wave, struggling to swim against the tide.  They have too many good players (on paper) to hit the panic button just yet but England have just proved that rankings and predictions count for very little if you can play as a team with inspirational leaders to follow.  I’m looking for that inspiration from SA and I’m not seeing it right now…..

To those of us who live in Brisbane and are ‘connected’ to the local cricket grapevine, the incident in Darwin comes as no real surprise.  It’s no secret that that the last six months have been challenging for Symonds, some of it his own making and some of it a product of circumstance and poor advice.

Essentially, Symonds is a man of simple pleasures, if you count hunting, fishing and a love for outdoors in that category.  The pressures of international cricket, coinciding with a few controversial incidents and a raft of commercial opportunities is apparently seriously interfering with his desire to indulge these outdoor pursuits.  He is never happier than when he is in the bush, hunting wild pigs or catching fish, accompanied by his dogs and sleeping under the stars.

The real issue seems to be whether it is normal for a 33 year old man to be confused by this sort of dilemma – to play international cricket and get paid millions or spend the rest of his days fishing and hunting for pleasure.  Most people his age are battling the even simpler things in life.  Things like mortgages, job security and putting food on the table.  Some people in the world share his hunting/fishing passion but they do it to put food on their humble tables.  They live ordinary lives.

But Symonds is no ordinary person and he lives no ordinary life.  His rich talents have seen to that.  Despite his riches though, his seems to be a life in imbalance.  If he is battling a loss of identity and depression because he is torn between what he wants to do with the rest of his life, then perhaps what he lacks is a semblance of normality to keep him grounded in the realities of everyday existence.  Some people live to hunt whilst others hunt to live.

Therein lies the potential problem that cricket administrators are going to have to face in the future.  Now that the game is truly professional around the world, with young men doing nothing else in their life but playing cricket, there will be more sad situations like this in the future.  As Brian Lara once said “cricket is ruining my life”.  In Symonds’ case, cricket is his life.  He knows nothing else and has no other career, yet he is almost on the verge of walking away from the very thing that has defined him.  It is a cruel irony.

It is not enough for him to complain that the other distractions, stemming from his talent and fame, are conspiring against him.  Endorsements, advertisements, sponsorships leading to fame and fortune. I cannot recall anyone forcing him to enter into these activities with a gun to his head.  If all he wants to do is play cricket and be left alone, then he is entitled to do just that.  Someone should tell his manager that!

Symonds is not alone in this regard.  Increasingly, international cricketers are being seduced by things outside cricket.  It pays well.  It gives them fame, fast cars and fast women.  Take it or leave it.  But you can’t take it AND leave it.  If you put money in the devil’s jukebox, you dance to his tune.

Cricket will be poorer if Symonds retires prematurely but it will survive.  The game will mourn him but only briefly.  We can learn an awful lot from his predicament though.  If we continue to create a system that views cricketers as one-dimensional gladiators rather than complex people with a need for balanced, rounded lives, this sort of situation will repeat itself around the world.  Someone like Warne continues to struggle with a post-cricket identity but somehow, one feels that people like Gilchrist, Hussey, Kumble or Sangakkara will walk away from the game with a balanced portfolio.

The ultimate responsibility lies with the player himself.  He is the one who has to live with himself in the long run.  The ones who go on to outlive their own cricketing fame may not be the best players but they may well turn out to be the best men.

Jerome Jayaratne, Head of Coaching at Sri Lanka Cricket provides a telling insight.  He claims that their development systems focus mainly on identifying natural talent and then refining it to the next level.  No hint or suggestion that “changing” someone’s base technique is at the core of his coaching mantra.  For a professional coach to admit that he favours a philosophy that relies upon the player’s talent to shine through, suggests an inner-confidence that is admirable in someone who would expect to be judged by the extent of his coaching intervention.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Someone like John Buchanan apparently had the philosophy of  “if it ain’t broke, break it and then rebuild it even better next time” which can be a great way to keep raising the bar.  It’s not a strategy that necessarily suits every cricketer though.

Too many coaches would try to stamp their own mark on a young cricketer, trying to turn them into something that suits the coach rather than the innate strengths of the player.  If this is what Sri Lankan cricket truly does, preserving flair and then refining it to transport the young player to the next level, it explains an awful lot about the last few years.  In some other development system, players like Malinga may never get past the junior cricket stage because they simply don’t fit the coaching blueprint.

In the case of Mendis, it appears that he is a young man with an immensely strong character and has a calm, unflappable temperament.  Working for the army in a country that is in the midst of a long civil war will do that to you!

As Jayaratne was quick to point out, Mendis showed early signs, in an A Tour to India, that he was quick to learn and even quicker to bounce back from a mistake.  Perhaps the military discipline shows again – by all accounts, Mendis has that rare ability to process critical feedback and use it towards improvement, without dwelling on the negatives.  In his other profession, that sort of mindset probably helps to keep him alive!

His method is very much his own, relying very little on the legacy that Muralidaran has left for him.  They are two entirely different kinds of bowlers.  Murali relies on vicious turn and teasing flight to beat batsman through the air.  Mendis has a bag of tricks that is best unleashed on batsmen who are unable to get down the track to him; hence, he has worked on coaching tips that suggested he push the ball through quickly, allowing the batsmen less time to react to his subtle variations.  The number of times he catches people on the crease, using their front pad as a line of first defence tells its own story.  Mendis will benefit from the third umpire referral system more than most.

Cricket on the tiny island is played everywhere, in laneways, beaches, paddy fields and bumpy fields.  Asked whether these uneven surfaces and unsupervised environments tend to breed unorthodoxy, Jayaratne had this to say:  “even this sort of casual cricket has some level of adult interest or supervision, usually by someone who encourages talent rather than tries to instil textbook methods.  That’s sometimes the flip side of a country that has a long cricket history but not necessarily learned from a book.  The older guys who mentor young kids just tend to do it instinctively, based on what seems to be successful.  All that does is encourage young kids to experiment.”

With a philosophy like that, it is easy to see why Sri Lanka keeps producing exciting young talent that breaks the mould.  Visionary coaches like Jerome Jayaratne, content to let genius find itself, have obviously fostered a culture that celebrates nature over nurture.  They have systems in place to identify talent coming through but as we’ve seen with players like Mendis and Malinga, it is refreshing to hear of a development team that doesn’t try too hard to create a factory.  Like Sri Lanka itself, rich in fertile ground, they just rely on Mother Nature’s gifts – all they do is harvest the bounty!