Wednesday, June 5, 2002 When white flannels mix with blue tongues emotions run red-hot. Obvious points tend to be overlooked. Such as, if Matthew Hayden really did tell Graeme Smith "You're not f#@%ing good enough" when he came out to bat at Cape Town in March, then the tactic failed miserably. Smith, aged 21, defied Australia's attack for nearly four hours and hit 68 in one of the more impressive Test debuts of the past year.

That's the thing about sledging: there is every chance it will backfire. Hayden, according to Smith, did not stop at one f-word, but ear-bashed him for a full two minutes. "You're not f#@%ing good enough. How the f#@% are you going to handle Shane Warne when he's bowling in the rough? What the f#@% are you going to do?" All of which made Smith doubly determined not to get out, least of all to Warne, until the battle had been won.

The first question to be asked about Smith's allegations, initially reported in the South African edition of Sports Illustrated, is are they true? Yes, would appear to be the answer, given that we have heard barely a whimper out of Waugh's men since the story broke five days ago. Sledging's unwritten law - those with the biggest mouths on the field make the least noise off it - seems a safe one to follow. Besides, Smith's claim that "all Warne does is call you a c#@% all day" is remarkably consistent with Warne's assault on Zimbabwe's Stuart Carlisle a couple of summers ago, when Channel 9's stump mike overheard Warne calling Carlisle a "f#@%ing arsey c#@%".

The second question is have the Australians done anything wrong? Yes again. The third question is why is it wrong? It is here that things are less clear-cut.

A peculiarity of sledging is that it annoys players a lot less than it irritates commentators and traditionalists, who are besotted with the idea that poor innocent children are picking up bad habits. This is largely a myth. Spectators are far enough away from the action to ensure that little Sammy comes home from his day at the cricket calling a maiden a maiden, rather than "an over where no f#@%ing runs are f#@%ing scored". And it is still a rare occasion, not the norm, when Warney's Shakespearian mutterings are beamed into living-rooms across the galaxy.

More worrying is the effect sledging has on Australia's performances. Philip Derriman, the Sydney Morning Herald journalist, wrote recently of how Manly's second-grade XI had risen to the top of the ladder despite - or perhaps because of - their refusal to sledge. "I think a lot of the guys who sledge lack confidence," explained the Manly captain Dick Fry who, with a name like that, probably knows a thing or two about on-field mockery. "They're trying to take the pressure off themselves but sledging actually puts more pressure on yourself. That's my theory."

It seems a sound one. Back in Warne's glory years it is hard to recall him wasting energy on such frippery. Only when his flipper lost its fizz did he let his mouth - rather than his wrist - do the talking. Glenn McGrath, whom Smith describes as "a grumpy old man", tends to lose his length and focus when he indulges in verbal byplay. The same is true of Brett Lee, who apparently told Smith he would "f#@%ing kill me if I ever touched him again". As Peter Roebuck so elegantly put it last summer: "A man either has a hairy chest or he does not. Merv Hughes and Dennis Lillee were adept at the theatricals, whilst Lee just looks like a pork chop."

If Australia's cricketers want to lose matches by losing their cool, that is their prerogative. It becomes our business when those of us who admire the way they play are embarrassed by the crass and humourless way they talk. Surely, as representatives of a nation that produces wordsmiths like Tim Winton and Peter Carey, humorists like Barry Humphries and Max Gillies, and ex-supersledgers like Ian Chappell and Rod Marsh, they can do better? Chappell, incidentally, foresaw the decline in sledging standards two decades ago in his otherwise disposable book Chappelli Has The Last Laugh. The proliferation of one-day cricket, he predicted, meant that players would be too busy to think up amusing cracks and too far away from their fellow fielders to share them.

Whatever the reason behind the crisis in world sledging standards, outlawing the practice is no solution. One of the beauties of cricket is that it is not simply a test of skill and luck. Courage, patience, mental strength and emotional willpower are equally important. Cricket lost a bit of that when its legislators restricted the number of bouncers; take away sledging and it would lose a little more.

However, the Australians would do well to remember that a funny sledge always beats an offensive sledge, which is likely merely to spur a batsman on. Their critics, meanwhile, should remember that sledging is a two-way street. A batsman, especially one whose mouth is concealed from the cameras by a metal grid, is just as capable of being the sledger as the sledgee.

It is commonplace in Australian club cricket for a batsman to inform the bowler he has just cover-driven for four that he has witnessed better deliveries in unstaffed maternity wards. Of all the stories, tall and true, about Steve Waugh perhaps the most endearing is of his World Cup-saving 120 not out at Headingley in 1999, when he cheerily barked advice at the South African fielders before firing the clincher at Herschelle Gibbs: "Hersh, how's it feel to have dropped the World Cup?"

Just imagine if a young WG Grace or Viv Richards walked out to bat and began hurling abuse at Warne, McGrath and Co? Now that would be a sight to behold. How the f#@% would they handle that? What the f#@% would they do?

Chris Ryan is a former managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age.

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