Tue 24 Jul 2007 6:11 pm
Watching the TV coverage of England v India you could hear Matthew Prior groan every time the batsman played a shot. I found it vaguely irritating after a while. According to Steve James. who clearly had the benefit of a stump mike this was what he was saying to Karthick and then Dhoni.
Clearly it spurred Dhoni onto better things and saving the game. It strikes me there’s not much point to sledging unless it contains some mordant wit or an essential truth, and “Yuvraj Singh is batting brilliantly in the nets,” slips into neither category. And as Prior found out it can backfire against you. It’s obviously not just Lara that you don’t sledge.
2 Responses to “Prior the Sledger”
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July 26th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Rolla, its been a while since we’ve made contact. Hope all is well. I watched some of this session, and was struck by the constant chatter from behind the stumps. For what its worth, I think Karthik made a mistake by complaining to the umpire about the chatter. The best strategy is to either pull away as the bowler runs in, and then tell him “I’ll be ready to bat when the keeper shuts up” or to turn around and tell the keeper himself to be quiet. Incidentally, I think its almost universally agreed that chattering once the bowler has started his run-up is simply not on (even in the Aussie culture of sledging, thats one thing thats not accepted).
Cheers,
Samir
July 30th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Good to hear from you Samir. I think generally I’d like to hear less chatter in the game at all levels and as you say, none at all during the bowlers’s run-up.
I think the BBC reporter who wrote this article must have read your post
Prior defends England’s strategy