Australians have their own way of playing the gentleman’s game, while it may have changed a bit now, but they still want to get under the skin of their opponents. Especially, the bowlers like to torment the batters with verbal and stare as much as with unplayable deliveries, which in a way brings the best out of them. Since we are on that topic, former Australia fast bowler Brett Lee recently opened up on the role of sledging in the game and how the banter is just for fun.
Speaking on news.com.au’s ‘I’ve Got News For You’ podcast, Lee admitted sledging was part of Test cricket and believes the best sledges are spontaneous which should always make the person they’re aimed at a laugh. He even mentioned how the Barmy Army even wrote a song about him. However, the best sledge he’s ever heard during his playing days came from an unlikely source.
“The best sledge I’ve ever heard was at a Sydney grade game,” Lee said on the podcast. He recalled that the day was a rainy one where you can’t find any momentum as the players were on and off the field throughout. That’s when someone from the grade team to charge things up said, “Let’s come up with what we believe is the ugliest cricketer in Australian cricket currently’, whether it’s first-class cricket or even grade cricket.
“So we’re going through what we thought was our ugliest XI. Anyway, we get back on, batsman comes out, takes centre, he’s scratching his crease, he added. That’s when one of his teammates positioned at first slip said, “Hey champ, we’ve just come up without ugliest XI and mate, looking at you right now through your lid, you are captain of the ugly XI’, he added. “He turned around and said, " Oh really? Well I can see your missus on the hill mate and she’s batting three. True story. It’s quick, it’s brilliant.”
The Australians are infamous for their on-field sledging, something that they have used to good effect against a lot of teams and players over the years. Lee believes that sledging has to come “off the cuff,” and most of the time there’s nothing untoward happening. “You don’t racially vilify someone, you don’t swear so the kids at home are listening in, " he mentioned. “It’s always funny stuff. You sledge someone to try and put them off their game. It’s got to be fun.”
Lee also reminisced about the time he was the butt of a practical joke in the Australian dressing room, just before his test debut. It involved Aussie greats Adam Gilchrist and Glen McGrath. “I’m super nervous, playing my first test, super anxious to get out there, " he said on I’ve Got News For You. Gilchrist was trying to calm him down by speaking to him and while he was at it, McGrath slyly tied his (Lee) shoelaces together.
“I got up and nearly tripped over. It was almost like, ‘Welcome’. That was like the initiation into the Australian cricket team,” he concluded.
Lee, who played 76 Test matches for Australia, took 301 wickets, and claimed 380 ODI scalps from 221 matches, before hanging up his boots in 2015. The pace legend had a successful international career spanning over two decades. He’s currently on a commentary assignment on Fox Cricket for the ongoing Ashes 2021-22 edition in Australia.
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