OPINION: During the 1982-83 Ashes series, England all-rounder Ian Botham strode to the middle, where he was greeted with a line from Australian wicketkeeper Rod Marsh that is the stuff of legend.

"How's your wife and my kids?" Marsh enquired.

"Wife's fine. Kids are retarded." Botham replied.

The exchange between the pair has been regularly voted the greatest sledge of all time. It's quick, and cutting.

One can imagine the line was delivered with tongue firmly planted in cheek, and the reply suggests as much. This is Ashes banter at its best.

Thirty-five years on, sledging appears to have taken a turn for the worse. It's at a point where some will shortly be questioning its place in the game.

Earlier this week, former England wicketkeeper Matt Prior let the genie out of the bottle when he claimed the exchanges during the 2017-18 Ashes series had become personal, and had no place on a cricket pitch.

"Simple sledging doesn't really work on these top international players" he said.

"You have to go deeper if you want to try and get a reaction and say something that's going to be pretty fiery and potentially personal."

The series has been a fiery one so far, with umpires regularly stepping in to diffuse verbal exchanges between players.

The first Test saw the Australians target Jonny Bairstow over the headbutting incident that punctuated the hosts' victory at the Gabba. There are subsequent claims that Bairstow was subjected to comments of a deeply personal nature. He admitted as much in his column for the Daily Mail, saying: "We move on. I hope it's gone now. I'm not making an issue of it."