Sporting etiquette is a funny thing.

In tennis, you can incur the wrath of officials and fans simply for whacking your racquet on the ground in frustration.

In rugby, demonstrating your frustration is fine as long as you stop short of punching someone in the face.

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In boxing, punching someone in the face is the whole point and if you don’t do it you’ll never get anywhere. It’s all relative.

Then there’s cricket, which has long been considered a gentlemen’s game – by which was originally meant that the working class would be allowed to play, but only if they did everything the rich guys said.

It is often said that cricket is ‘different’: that the codes of behaviour that apply to the game are stricter and more decorous than in other sports, and that keeping them so is essential to cricket’s very nature.

It’s generally believed that standards have slipped in cricket and that players are far more disrespectful of the game’s spirit than in the past. Notwithstanding the time Peter Heine told Trevor Bailey he wanted to murder him, or when Dennis Lillee actually kicked Javed Miandad, this might be true as a broad trend.

The fact that Test captains are constantly called upon to piously declare that they never cross the line (O, that mythical line! How mysterious its ways and how nobly it reigns over us!) suggests that the line, wherever it may objectively be, is frequently in the vicinity of players’ feet.

I would love if it were not so, and not because of the example it sets. I don’t think children are at risk of becoming delinquents if they see David Warner scream or if they lip-read Mitchell Starc’s response to being hit for four.



It’s not the most pressing issue confronting the world. It’s not even the most pressing issue confronting cricket (that being selectorial bias against Glenn Maxwell).

But there is a good reason I would like cricketers to stop flirting with ‘the line’, clean their act up and display better manners in the heat of battle.

Put simply, it is because I love cricket, and I would enjoy it if we could talk about it occasionally, instead of spending all our time pondering the acceptable extent of verbal abuse.

Australia just secured a great victory against a strong team on their own turf. Dogged, skilful batting and brilliant bowling were on display. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be discussing and celebrating this, instead of lamenting the degenerate modern generation?

Wouldn’t you love to be reading and listening to commentators waxing lyrical about Mitch Marsh’s unexpected turn as the saviour of the top order, or Mitch Starc’s searing detonation of the lower order in both innings, or even Nathan Lyon’s continued wily excellence?

The less patriotic among us might even care to reflect on the fact that in defeat, Aiden Markram played one of Test cricket’s great Forlorn Hopes.

But we barely hear about any of this, because it’s all been drowned out by the exasperating juvenilia of the players’ playground spats.



It’s not that I have no empathy. I understand how when the blood is up and the adrenalin is pumping, it’s easy to forget oneself and act like a bit of a dick. Although the amount of time the Australian team, since the reign of Steve Waugh, has withered on about the use of sledging as a tactical device suggests that these incidents aren’t always a result of spontaneous head-loss.

But whatever the circumstance, it is well past time that every player remembered that he has a choice, every time he goes onto the field.

Warner, for example, had a choice when he affected the run-out of AB de Villiers: he could bellow with joy, throw up his arms, embrace his teammates, and celebrate the success of his team; or he could shriek abuse at Markram and take this moment of exultation as an opportunity to belittle an opponent.

At the same time, Nathan Lyon, on whipping off the bails, had a choice: he could hurl the ball skywards in ecstasy as successful fielders traditionally do, or he could carefully drop the ball on his prostrate foe like a schoolboy pulling a girl’s pigtails.

Both Lyon and Warner made their choices.

It’s not a one-sided thing. Kagiso Rabada has a choice as to how he marks the fall of a wicket: he can revel in his own triumph or he can yell at the batsman to f*** off.

And certainly, Quinton de Kock has a choice as to whether he leaves the field quietly to have a cup of tea at the designated time, or make the jokes about his name even easier to spout by deliberately trying to provoke a fight with an opposition player via pointless arseholery.



Having said that, Warner had a choice there too. I can sympathise with anyone wanting to lash out when their family is insulted, and it’s hard to blame him, but nonetheless he could have chosen to roll his eyes at the tosser trying to goad him and laugh at his idiocy back in the dressing room.

It’s not always easy to make the right choices when you’re angry, but I would beg of all cricketers to strive their hardest to do so.

Because honestly, I just want to talk about cricket.