A minor controversy has emerged in cricket with South Africans allegedly racially abusing Pakistani players. The South African officials are saying that the phrase used was they’re like animals... Footage shows that the exact phrase used also included go back to your zoo with plenty of expletives in between though it is not clear on whom the insults were directed at.

I don’t see why a player has to crop abusive behaviour on the field just because he is playing cricket. I don’t see tennis players mouthing off against each other for example and I don’t see it in any sport at least as openly as I see in cricket. Isn’t tennis a professional sport as well?

Kallis called an Indian batsman (I think it was Dravid) you *abuses* Indian during the recent South Africa-India series. Now why should a player tolerate such nonsense just because he is playing cricket?

I have been a long term advocator of playing cricket with the bat and the ball instead of the mouth and even though I might be in a minority, I feel firmly on the topic. I don’t see why sledging should be passed as part of the game.

Friendly banter is okay but sledging, particularly the racial kind, is not required in sport.

Update: Cricketvideosunplugged has the video of the incident.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 11:01 am and is filed under Cricket. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.