The art of sledging
Brett Geeves | January 22, 2025
Sledging. It’s lost some of its lustre, yeah? The PC requirements of the modern day has meant comments about rival players being shit blokes gets the media wetting themselves over the wit, class, cunning and hard arsed edge from which the game is currently played.
Give Painey credit, he does make the below list of celebrated verbal heroes, and he does so as an eleven-year-old chump. He’s got it in him, Painey; but this last test match was falsely made out to be played with same ferocity as the Battle of Britain – both the war and the North Melbourne v Carlton game from 1987.
Media types, please, put your manners back in and remember some of these zingers before claiming the Aussies are now top sledging dogs of all time.
Jimmy Ormond (England) v Mark Waugh (Australia) - Ashes Test
Waugh: “There’s no way you’re good enough to play for England.”
Ormond: “Maybe not, but at least I’m the best player in my own family.”
Unfortunately for my big brother he got this exact sledge in a Third-Grade game many years ago. I guess it was karma for always batting first in backyard games and then not bowling to me because A Country Practice had started.
English fan v Aussie opener and cookbook author Matthew Hayden - Ashes Test
Fan: “You’re s**t Hayden, and so is your chicken casserole.”
Agreed. Leave the cooking to Jeff Janz.
Marlon Samuels (West Indies) v Shane Warne (retirement) – World T20 final
After winning the T20 World Cup and being named man of the match; Marlon very nonchalantly, with feet on the table, went on a tirade at Warne that ended with this little zinger: “Maybe it’s because my face is real and his face is not”.
There is no hiding the fact – unless he wore a balaclava or a bag on his head - that Warney has had some work done. Remember though, this feud runs deep. Who could forget Warnes explosion at the MCG during the BBL?
Matthew Hayden (Queensland) v Tim Paine (Tasmania) - Sheffield Shield match
A young Tim Paine was walking out to bat in the first Shield game of the year at the GABBA against the intimidating Bulls. As is common for the first game of the year, Tim was wearing all brand-new Gray-Nicolls Fusion gear - that was made famous by Hayden - and his cherry less bat was particularly shiny. Mathew Hayden stopped him as he got to the Gully region and said: “Look at you with your squeaky new Fusion pads and your shiny new Fusion bat … BECAUSE OF ME!”
Nothing like some well delivered arrogance to intimidate a junior player.
Ian Healy/My Dad (Australia) v Arjuna Ranatunga (Sri Lanka) - One-day international
During a one-dayer between Australia and Sri Lanka Ranatunga decided he needed a runner. The stump microphone then picked up the following sledge from Healy: “You don’t get a runner for being an overweight, fat c***”.
I remember watching this game with my dad. I must have been about seven or eight and I can still remember him commenting on a giant stain (possible sweat) that sat on the guts of Ranatunga.
“You don’t get a runner for spilling gravy all over yourself you fat p***k”.
Had my Dad been playing for Australia at the time of delivery, he too would be hailed a verbal hero.
Merv Hughes (Australia) v Javed Miandad (Pakistan) - Test match
Miandad: “Merv you are a big, fat bus conductor.”
Hughes (after dismissing Miandad): “Tickets please.”
Eleven year old Tim Paine (University Cricket Club) v Third Grade stalwart (Beer and Crass Jokes) – Village
At 11 years of age, Paine was representing the University Cricket Club’s third grade team; which back then was a competitive grade of battle-hardened warriors.
Me? 13 years of age: No.4 batter and hard-working leg-spinner.
My own skipper of the day, a chap by the name of Brett Smith, was in third grade not for progression and not from junior pathways. His physique alone suggested that he was made from beers and crass jokes.
As both teams were shaking hands, 11-year-old Paine came face-to-face with his sledging nemesis from the two days’ play: Captain Smith, made from beer.
Rather than accept the outstretched hand of the opposition captain and third grade stalwart, Paine flicked him a 10c piece and said: “Go and buy yourself some runs, Santa.”
Daryll Cullinan (South Africa) v Warne (Australia) - Test match
As Cullinan was on his way to the wicket, Warne told him that he had been waiting two years for another chance to humiliate the South African. The Proteas batsman’s response? “Looks like you spent it eating.”
For a guy that was inevitably going to play back to a flipper and have his pads blown off, Cullinan’s reply is sharp and would make all those dismissals seem worth it.
Travis Birt (Tasmania) v Justin Langer (Western Australia)– Sheffield Shield
During a Shield game at the WACA, which happened to be JL’s return game after being hit hard on the helmet by Makhaya Ntini during a Test in South Africa, forcing him out of the game for a period; I was bowling to JL and someone else with no relevance to the story.
Whilst standing at the non-strikers, JL is eye balling me. As I got the top of my mark and ran in, he would watch me. As I walked back to my mark, he was still watching me. He did not take his eyes off me for three minutes. If this were a night club, I’d have lashed him.
After the fifth dot, I walked back past him with a finger up my nose. He looked angry. As the sixth ball was another dot; I turned around from my follow through with an additional finger up my beak and collected my hat from the referee.
This made Justin angry. He said “You are a savage and a bogan and have no respect for the game”. I laughed, as this was true, and replied “Are you still fuming about me being too quick for you in Devonport 4 years ago”? Justin was very quick to reply “I don’t remember stuff like that”.
Just as he completed his flustered rebuttal, former Tasmanian, Hobart Hurricane and Perth Scorcher Travis Birt ran past and said “That’s because you’ve been hit in the head too many times”.
Ian Botham (England) v Rod Marsh (Australia) - Ashes Test
Marsh: “How’s your wife and my kids?”
Botham: “The wife’s fine, but the kids are retarded.”
Sharp. And most importantly, deflating to Marsh who would have given more thought to that sledge than any of the T20 World Cup squads he selected. He would have been thinking that there was no possible come back and Botham delivered the all-time great response. Some days, you just have to tip your cap.
First published 19 December 2018
