Clarke, Haddin warn against excessive sledging

Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin have counselled Australia against excessive sledging in the forthcoming Test series against South Africa, querying whether recent efforts to “puff chests out” detracted more from the team’s own performances than having any impact on the opposition.

The Australia ODI team engaged in numerous verbal battles with South Africa over the course of a 5-0 series defeat on their recent tour, which followed captain Steven Smith’s assertion that a “quiet” team needed to show more “energy” in the field. While Clarke and Haddin were both known for numerous verbal stoushes over their careers, the former Test team leadership duo agreed that forcing the issue verbally would do more harm than good.

“I’m probably contradicting the way I captained, because I loved that aggressive approach and while there was a line, I always liked the team I captained to head-butt that line, not overstep it but head-butt it. That’s how I thought we played our best cricket,” Clarke told ESPNcricinfo. “But the older I got and the more I experienced I believed it wasn’t what you said it was what you did, so your performance wasn’t dictated by your mouth.

“I’m probably contradicting myself and my captaincy style because there were a couple of occasions where I did open my big mouth. The reason I did that with James Anderson was to stick up for George Bailey and the Dale Steyn one was sticking up for James Pattinson as well. But I shouldn’t have said a word, in both situations there was no need for me to say anything.”

Clarke noted that numerous players from past eras were particularly talkative on the field because it is what worked for them, not because they felt compelled to do so out of some idealised image of the Australian cricketer. “I think you need to do what’s comfortable to you,” he said. “The team I grew up playing in that Australian team, they had Steve Waugh, Matthew Hayden, Shane Warne, …

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