SLEDGING IN CRICKET.

SLEDGING IN CRICKET. This weekend’s Financial Times has an article by Jo Johnson on sledging in recent cricket Test matches. Sledging is comparable to trash talking in basketball or bench jockeying in baseball. Apparently, however, because some traditionalists think sledging is unsportsmanlike, part of the art of sledging is to avoid being overheard by umpires or microphones. Another bit of gamesmanship from the recent India-England Test match was the scattering of jellybeans near the stumps by the English side. The jellybeans were meant to suggest that the Indians were cheating by applying sticky saliva to the ball (the baseball equivalent is the spitball, although K-Y lubricant, thumbtacks and pine tar rather than spit are supposed to be in current use). One of India’s stars is supposed to have brandished his cricket bat in anger at the accusation.