Bully Australian Side Of Cricketers

Over the years, it is the Australians who have mastered the art of sledging. They sneakily get into the nerves of batsmen through personal sledges...

- Bhavesh Bhimani

Why is it that every time there is something truly controversial happens in international cricket, Australia is almost always a part of it somehow?

It happened with Dennis Lillee and Javed Miandad in 1981. It happened with McGrath and Sarwan in 2003. Mitchell Johnson got stuck into Scott Styris rather viciously in 2010. Then there was the ugly Harbhajan and Symonds row in 2008 and Steve Smith’s famous “Brain Fade” moment in 2017. For some reason, Australians have been involved in the major controversial sagas of international cricket.

And now, the David Warner – Quinton de Kock stairwell skirmish during the first Test between Australia and South Africa in Durban has further brought this issue to the fore. Both players were fined for their altercation where Warner was seen heatedly abusing South African keeper, De Kock, even as his fellow mates tried to push him away.

After the punishment, Warner was quoted as saying that, “I cop it left, right and centre, especially off the field from spectators and I’m used to that and it doesn’t bother me. But in a proximity of my personal space and from behind me, a comment that was vile and disgusting about my wife, and in general about a lady, was quite poor I felt.”