Ashes 2017: Graeme Swann says sledging is making Ashes a distasteful circus… but Michael Vaughan loves aggro
Trash-talk was ramped up over claims Jonny Bairstow headbutted Cameron Bancroft before series had begun
VERBAL abuse has been a hot topic in the Ashes series. To sledge or not to sledge?
SunSport sat down with Michael Vaughan and Graeme Swann - two of England’s best-known players of the last 20 years and now pundits for BT Sport – to discuss on-field insults.
And their views could hardly be more different. Ex-captain Vaughan revels in aggro on the field while spinner Swann wants a good, clean fight with no trash talking.
John Etheridge: It’s been a lively start to the Ashes with the headbutt stuff involving Jonny Bairstow while Ben Stokes lurks in the background.
Graeme Swann: It’s turned into a circus. Singling out and picking on Jonny is not very tasteful. I don’t like the direction it’s going, there’s no need for it.
Michael Vaughan: I thought last time was pretty bad, although that might have been more about the brutality of what Australia did with the ball to England in that First Test.
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I’m more concerned about the last day-and-a-half of cricket in Brisbane. I saw a juggernaut from Australia arrive. How the hell are England going to stop that?
We saw what happened four years ago. As soon as they start gaining confidence and David Warner starts chirping, you know they’re playing good cricket.
If I’m in the same team as Warner, I’m telling him to chirp all the time. That’s when he plays his best cricket. England have to find a way of quietening him down and playing the short ball.”
JE: Do England need to be less passive?
GS: I don’t think they were steamrollered or too passive. They approached it properly. You shouldn’t try to be something you’re not. They’re not a bunch of sledgers or fighters. If they try that, they’ll look daft.
It’s what Australia want, they’re goading England. The best thing England can do is concentrate on not being blown away by the short ball.
That whole thing with Jonny Bairstow was PR managed. That’s what I find unsavoury.
There’s no point trying to be moral ambassadors when you’re humiliating and bullying someone on a stump mic and then saying Bairstow and Ben Stokes should be ashamed of themselves.
Me and Vaughany both played in Ashes series and very little was said.
MV: I used to call them all sorts of names! I look at the England team and it’s a concern. They’re a quiet team. Who’ll come back with a bit?
They are a nice set of guys so they have to think out of the box to surprise Australia. If they play orthodox cricket, it is going to get messy because Australia have a better set of players.
GS: If they get into a verbal battle over stump mics, that would be embarrassing. The Ashes would disintegrate.
JE: Do we in the media exaggerate the impact of sledging?
GS: Massively. All the great sledging stories are amusing, that’s why they are told. To mentally disintegrate someone by chastising or bullying has no place on the field. If you have to do that to win, you’re taking something from the game. I don’t mid the odd bit of mickey-taking on the field, that can be genuinely funny.
MV: I’ve seen players affected and diminished by sledging. But you’ve got to remember England have beaten Australia a lot recently. We gave them plenty. We’re not a clean team when it goes our way. As I say, I’d tell Warner to be a nasty little pain on the field.
GS: It goes both ways. I’ve seen one England player say something to Warner and he almost burst into tears. He wouldn’t accept it.
MV: What, he burst into tears?
GS: Well, maybe not, but he wasn’t impressed. He was very upset that something about his personal life was brought up. I think it’s unedifying and those Ashes I played in, the team didn’t sledge. Maybe Jimmy a bit when he gets angry but nobody was using the stump mic to try to humiliate people.
MV: It’s part of the game. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t happen but Australia are at their best when they play like that. I loved it. If they were having a go at me, it meant I’d been out there batting for a while and they were worried. I used to tell them to f*** off.
The best I played against was Steve Waugh. He didn’t abuse, he just quietly reminded you of failures and that you were under pressure.
So, as soon as John Crawley, Rob Key or Mark Butcher came out, he’d make a big thing of setting exactly the same field as they’d got out to previously. He’d talk them through it.
GS: That’s quiet clever, that’s not bullying. I think the stump mic is intrusive. If you saw your young kid watching a film with eff-this and eff-that, would you turn it off? Of course you would. So why should they be subjected to that watching cricket?
MV: I want it to be hostile, aggressive. Swanny’s in dreamland.
GS: The grounds are covered with signs saying spectators must not use offensive language. But the players can do it? And be celebrated for it?
We weren’t nasty when we won down here in 2010-11, I’d refute that allegation. Jimmy might have chirped but Chris Tremlett, Steven Finn and Tim Bresnan didn’t say a word.
The three games I love the most – cricket, golf and rugby union – are based on fair play. In rugby, international players call the referee “Sir.” But maybe I’m a genteel old fool.
MV: Mate, your lot peed on the pitch!
JE: What about Ben Stokes? You’re quite sympathetic to his situation, aren’t you, Swanny?
GS: I don’t see what good it’s doing leaving him in limbo. Make a decision. England desperately need him from a cricket point of view. I’d have him on the tour – he’s not been charged.
They’re not going to march on field and arrest him in the middle of a game. I believe a man is innocent until proven guilty. Life has to go on.
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It’s another thing to chip away at Rooty. He doesn’t need the distraction. The Aussies don’t want Stokes here - that’s why past players are saying he should be banned. They are frightened of him.
MV: I’m happy he’s going to play in New Zealand but, until the criminal process is complete, I don’t see how the ECB can pick him. It’s not an easy for Strauss and Co.