Ian Chappell: "I think personal abuse has crept into the game" © AllSport UK Ltd

Sanjay Manjrekar: Hello and welcome to the Cricinfo Roundtable. I'm Sanjay Manjrekar.

Cricket is seeing troubled times. The Sydney Test, which should have been a well-crafted commercial for Tests, has transformed into a full-blown horror flick. It will now be remembered for shocking umpiring decisions, bad blood between teams and most disturbingly, [for] allegations of racial abuse.

This brings me to the point of discussion today - sledging or mental disintegration as Steve Waugh would like to call it. Some say that sledging is as old as the game itself. Even the revered WG Grace is said to have sledged oppositions. Some say that the Australians invented it and then honed it into a fine art. But what is a sledge and when does it transform into good, old-fashioned personal abuse and where does one draw the line? To discuss this burning issue, I have with me former Australian captain Ian Chappell and Sri Lankan wicketkeeper-batsman Kumar Sangakkara - two men who know a thing or two about the fine art of sledging.

Welcome gentlemen.

Kumar Sangakkara: Thank you Sanjay.

Ian Chappell: Thanks Sanjay.

Manjrekar: Sorry I had to call it the fine art of sledging [laughs], but let me just throw up an initial question to both of you. I'm going to ask you a simple question: What in your opinion is sledging and how is it not personal abuse? Ian, if we can start with you.

Chappell: Well I don't recognise the term Sanjay, because I was there when the term was coined and it has nothing to do with what goes on on the field. So as far as I'm concerned, there is gamesmanship, which has always been around and there's always place in the game for that; then there is abuse; and I think the third thing that has crept into the game, which has gone out of control a bit in recent times, is inane chatter. So there's a path for gamesmanship, but no path for abuse and certainly in my opinion, no path for inane chatter.

Manjrekar: Yes because this morning I tried to look up the dictionary meaning of sledging and it had something to do with an old board on snow, something we use as a sledge [laughs]. Sangakkara, tell us, Ian said sledging is a term that he doesn't recognise, but are you for gamesmanship and where do you draw the line and how does one differentiate personal abuse from gamesmanship, keeping in mind, the cultural angle and different languages?

Sangakkara: Well Ian is spot on. There are differences and sledging is a term that was coined by the media, I think. There's always some sort of banter going on in the middle and some of it can be very interesting and it adds to the competitiveness out on the field. But then again, sometimes you get people who stand in the slips and sometimes even wicketkeepers who just keep going on and on, and even as bowlers are running up, they're still talking. Most of the time, it's nothing. It's not directed at the opposition, it's just chatter. But after a while that can get a little annoying even to your own team.

I think you should draw the line when you drag your colour, your race, your country or your family into it because that is personal abuse and it has no place in the game. Also players have to be very honest with themselves that if they do engage in gamesmanship and banter, that is always something you can leave on the field. You should not go running around and complaining to the media or to the match referees. If it's gamesmanship, you can always leave that on the field because it is directed to get a reaction that is advantageous to you, in a way that is not abuse.

Manjrekar: Ian, you've put this talk or chatter on the field into three categories - gamesmanship, personal abuse and inane chatter. Are the officials - the umpires on the field - capable and competent enough of categorising the chatter on the field into these three columns and act accordingly?

Chappell: Well, there's two things Sanjay. Firstly, the officials, ICC or whoever it is that runs the game, has diluted the decision-making process of the umpires on the field and in doing that, they have diluted the authority of the umpires on the field. They have also put layers of officials between the umpires and the players - you've got referees; the CEO of the ICC can side a player when he is 1000 miles away. Now you've got this stupidity of captains being asked to dob in the opposition for racial slurs. It's ridiculous. So I think once you start diluting the decision-making process of the umpires, you get a bunch of umpires who really don't want to make decisions. They are happier referring decisions or somebody else taking it out of their hands. So if you are going to breed umpires like that, then no. They haven't got the capability of running the game on the field. But the sooner we get back to the two umpires running the game on the field, the game will be a lot better.

As far as the inane chatter is concerned, I've been contending for at least a decade that the more you allow to be said on the cricket field, the more likelihood that someone will get personal. And if it gets personal at the wrong time, then trouble erupts. That's what happened at the SCG. Ten years ago I wrote that it will end in fisticuffs. It hasn't yet, but it will and if the officials don't understand how important it is to cut down on the inane chatter that goes on on the field, they are going to keep having problems.

The other thing that staggers me is that batsmen don't take the law into their own hands if the umpires won't stop it. If I'm a batsman out there in the middle and all that rubbish is being spoken, I'm not going to put up with it. I'm going to put an end to it myself if the umpires won't.

Manjrekar: Sangakkara, you've been around for a while, playing at the highest level. You've played against the toughest oppositions all over the world. Do you see think this has increased over the last few years or does the media give more attention to it because they love to highlight such matters more than what happens with the bat and the ball.

Sangakkara: I think more than the players getting more involved in it, the media hype has increased. It's strange for me because when I came into the side, it was all about Australia saying this and saying that and being very verbally aggressive on the field. In the past four years, we've played quite a few series against them and we've never had any incident of that sort. There have been a few words said, but there has never been anything that is personally abusive. It was just a lot of tough, hard cricket being played.

We had one really bad Test series in South Africa in 2002, but after that series, there was nothing else.

But Ian is right. You've got to have people who are closest to the action, especially the umpires, making the decisions as to how and when these things are dealt with. If you have a CEO who is not even in the country and not even in the ground trying to call in and say, "Well I saw this", that is never going to work. Even a match referee is quite far removed from where the action is. The two guys who are in charge are the umpires and they should be allowed to handle it as they see fit. If there is gamesmanship, leave it on the field. If you give it out, you should be able to take it. There are no two ways about it. If the players are not going to stand for it, I don't think we'll have these many problems. But as I said, there are going to be things said and if everyone is going to look at the umpires to solve it, then it's just going to turn into a huge controversy and sometimes a joke. So when it comes to that, if the players are the ones to complain, they should really start thinking about what is being said out there by them.

	There is no place for inane chatter from the fielding side © Getty Images

Manjrekar: Ian I'm just going to pick out something that Sangakkara said that I thought was very striking. [He said] that Sri Lanka never had those problems with Australia, that India seem to have of late. I have two questions to you Ian. One, is Australia playing differently against India? Two, is it the excessive attention that India gets as a cricket team, that blows such issues out of proportion?

Chappell: Well, I'm not in India to judge what is being said back there.

Manjrekar: I'll tell you. A lot is being said and we are making national headlines with every word that is coming out of the players. Political matters have taken a backseat. In a nutshell, that is the situation here [laughs]. The fact that there are so many Indian fans watching, so there is that extra needle that Sangakkara didn't see in Sri Lanka-Australia matches. So does that get Australia a little more fired up when they are playing India?

Chappell: Well I don't know. You should probably ask the Australian players that. But I don't think what the media believes is all that important. In the end, it is cricket that should sort out the problem, if they believe there is a problem. I read a wonderful quote by an Indian journalist today and it said something along the lines of "The BCCI runs the ICC and the media runs the BCCI".

Manjrekar: That was said by Suresh Menon from Bangalore and I thought that was a wonderful piece he wrote.

Chappell: Yes, so in the end, the cricket administration throughout the world is pretty terrible. The fist thinks from the head. The ICC has never been a good body to run cricket and I think that it has deteriorated terribly over the last decade. I wrote somewhere the other day that if you've got an administration that is strong, but fair; if you've got umpires who are competent and who run the game with authority; and captains who set a good example, then you've got good cricket. I mean there will always be problems and what people need to remember is that cricketers just happen to be human beings. So let cricket sort out things. Media is not going to sort it out at all because they would love to jump on the bandwagon of any controversy. But until cricket is run properly, there is no chance it will be sorted out.

Manjrekar: Sangakkara, one of the things that both of you are in agreement with is that the umpires on the field [should have the authority] to sort it out. There was a time when the administrators felt that the umpires weren't good enough in tackling the situation and so matters were taken out of their hands, everything was stipulated in that blue book of the ICC - what has to be done when this happens. Do you think there are enough number of competent umpires out there? Competent enough to get the cricketing decisions right, like the leg befores and everything else, and also being able to monitor players' behaviour and distinguish racial abuse from personal abuse and personal abuse from gamesmanship? Do you think we can find such people?

Sangakkara: I'm sure you can Sanjay, even if you look hard at the existing umpires. I think there is a lot of doubt in the mind of the umpires as to what will happen to them if they take a strong decision out on the field. They are being second-guessed by television, they are being questioned by players, the match referee and the ICC. They go through the whole process.

I think it's always good to keep them on their toes and say, "You've got to be as professional as the players are and you've got to be correct as often as humanly possible." At the same time, they have to go out there with the confidence knowing that they have an authority that backs them a 100% and that they earn the players' trust. I think that is the key thing. Sometimes, with such high stakes, you're going to get a couple of decisions wrong. You're never going to get perfect umpires who don't make any mistakes. It depends on how the players and the media take it and how their reaction influences the governing bodies. We have to understand that the media will always hype things up. They are there to do that. The players have to accept the fact that they are going to be scrutinised and that there will be criticism. Some will be outrageous and some will be constructive criticism. Everything will be done by the media. The governing bodies have to realise that the media is there to do that. But, do we really have to make changes because someone writes about it, asks for it and criticises it? I don't think so. I think we've got to do the right thing at the right time and sometimes if it displeases the media, well so be it. As long as the players, the officials and the game is safeguarded, that's what you have to do and the authorities in power have to make sure that happens. You cannot be pleasing one section just because they have more outlets for voicing their opinion. You have to make sure that the players and the game and then the officials who oversee everything, have the authority to go out and do what they are best at.

Chappell: Because I'm a bit older than both of you, I was around when the problem started to occur between the officials and the umpires. What happened was that there were plenty of teeth in the laws for the umpires to do their job on the field. Unfortunately the administrators didn't have the guts to back the umpires when they tried to do things and eventually, I'm sure, the umpires just threw their hands in the air and said: "If we're not going to be backed, we're not going to take these strong stands." Because the officials were so weak, they thought they'll solve this problem by bringing in referees and all these other sheriffs. But what they've actually done is made the problem worse. So, as in most cases, most of the animosity and anger that occurs on the cricket field is caused by poor officialdom - whether it is poor laws, poor administration or bad decision-making. But, in the first place, if the officials and the administrators had backed the umpires to the hilt, we wouldn't have even needed referees.

Manjrekar: Well Ian, I completely agree with you and Sangakkara that there are some officials out there who are tough and who take the right decisions because the moderator of this discussion [himself] was once sent off by a very competent umpire in a first-class match [laughs]. I'm not complaining about that gentleman because he sent me off the field, and I deserved it.

There's another angle to what happened at Sydney and that is the cultural differences. A certain term, which is friendly banter and gamesmanship in one country, could be racially abusive in another country. So Sangakkara, how do the umpires and the officials differentiate between the two?

Sangakkara: Well I think it's quite difficult to say that this is exactly this. I've always believed that racism has a lot to do with how some things are said. Just identifying a person to be black or white is not usually racism. It is the way it is said and usually the words that follow that term [that can determine if something is racist or not].

You are right. There have been some instances when people have been misunderstood. We had an instance with one of our fast bowlers Ruchira Perera, who was bowling at Craig White. Perera was hit for a couple of fours and he said, "Bloody White I'm going to kill you." He was hauled up before the match referee and his explanation was: "I'm sorry I don't know why I am here because I called him by his name - Craig White." So sometimes you do get misunderstood and you get instances where [what] players [say is] sometimes construed to mean various different things by various people. But I think that is where you [have to] deal with it on the field and you don't take this out off the field.

I think Darren Lehman was hauled up for making a racial comment when he was playing against us and he was off the field. But if you can deal with it on the field, then the umpires and the players will have a lot more control over what goes on. If it is something that is so terrible that it cannot be dealt with on the field and it deserves to go to the match referee and then dealt with by the ICC, then yes do it. But don't dilute the powers of the umpires on the field and also the players should have enough self-respect and respect for each other to be able to deal with things either on the field or over a drink off the field. I think if you trust the players and the umpires a lot more, you'll get lesser misunderstandings and the game will go on more efficiently. Everyone will be a lot freer in their minds as to where they stand. So I think players have a great responsibility in doing that.

	The on-field umpires need to be more assertive, feel the experts © AFP

Manjrekar: Ian, there is so much being said about every statement that is made by the player on the field and any offhand remark is reported and it makes headlines. In the seventies, when you played, you played tough cricket too. But what has changed from the seventies and the way players behaved on the field then and how it is now?

Chappell: Well, I would say that what was said on the field in the seventies was a little humorous, there was a little that you could classify as abusive - fast bowlers telling batsmen that they would knock their so and so block off - but most batsmen either laughed it off or responded to it in their own way. But it was never somebody setting out to either degrade the opposition or to work on the opposition with a verbal attack.

The team that I captained was accused of starting it, basically they accused me of starting it. One of my responses to that is: with an attack of Lillee, Thompson, Pascoe, Gilmour, I did not feel like I had to talk blokes out. Two things bother me when Steve Waugh starts talking about mental disintegration - I just say that it is total rubbish and unfortunately now every time it is discussed, or a player is asked about it, then the player seems to say that it is part of the game. My answer to that is: codswallop, it is not part of the game, the batsman does not have to put up with that rubbish on the field. That's why I said earlier on that if the umpires aren't going to help them, you (batsman) put an end to it yourself. So, I would say there were, certainly, things said on the field but it wasn't constant. And, in my own case, what I said on the field was because an opposition player had annoyed me doing something - like turning around and looking at us when we appealed - and that used to annoy the hell out of me. I always used to tell him the same thing: you get on with your batting, you leave the appealing to us and leave the umpiring to the umpire, and we all will be a lot happier. Now, if I speak three sentences, there would be a bit of swearing in there, but it wasn't done because I was trying to unsettle the batsman. It was done because I always believed that the fielding side was entitled to appeal. So, if a lot of people thought that I was doing that to unsettle them [batsman] then they were wrong.

Manjrekar: I have a theory gentlemen, something to do with television which I have been involved with for the last 10 years. Some players have realised that if they behaved in a certain manner, if they said some things or glared at the opposition, they would get a lot of attention via the television cameras. Obviously, this is the cricketer who perhaps doesn't get enough wickets or runs to get the attention. So he realises: "If I behave in a certain fashion that is slightly over the top, I tend to get lot of attention." Do you think that is also one of the reasons why we see so much of aggression, some players feel that "I am being watched very closely by the public - if some opposition player has given it to me then I have got to give it back to show the public back home that I am not the one to take it lying down"?

Sangakkara: I think players can't have it both ways. Players start complaining about the media when they start criticising things, but they also use media for career advancement, endorsements and things like that. So, you have to learn how to live with the media. Sanjay, I think you are right - there are some people who tend to think that one part of playing cricket is being aggressive verbally, and having excessive gestures and body language on the field, and sometimes people think that's the way to go.

I think Australia has created a scenario where people going to Australia come with a preconceived idea that you have to be verbally aggressive, you have to glare and mumble and shout and get involved in sledging, because that's how you beat Australia. And I think all of that works in Australia's favour, when players come with their minds on things other than cricket - other than batting, bowling and fielding. I think, for years, it has worked in Australia's favour. Teams go out there, and they actually sit down and plan for things other than playing cricket.

Manjrekar: Ian, you want to add on to that?

Chappell: Well, all I would say is - if that's the way they plan to play against Australia, they are stupid. I think I have mentioned before, the first-class game is played very competitively and there is a bit said on the field. In a lot of cases, because there are guys who play together in the Australian side and they know each other's foibles, they will get mentioned on the field. Now, Australians are used to playing in that atmosphere. I said before the start of the Indian tour here, that if India came to Australia and started to try and challenge Australia by playing that way, they would be falling into a trap. India have got to outsmart Australia and not try and beat them at their own game.

Manjrekar: Kumar, I have noticed with you that you have been giving it back to certain opposition on certain days, but against most other teams you are quite happy to be behind the stumps or with a bat in your hand scoring double-hundreds. It seems like you have control over the way you behave, especially against India you are very quiet and hardly noticeable on the field. But, I remember a few matches against South Africa for which you got a lot of attention for the way you conducted yourself on the field. So was that deliberately changed behaviour against certain opposition on certain days?

Sangakkara: Not really Sanjay, my approach to sledging is: if you say something to me then I reply, and that's it, it's done. I don't have to worry about anything happening outside the field, even though it has happened sometimes off the field, where some things have been taken too far. But, keep it simple, and if someone says something then you settle it immediately and then you move on, rather than having it run the length of an entire series.

Manjrekar: Ricky Ponting has got a lot of criticism for the way he handled his team, do you think a captain should be held ultimately responsible for the behaviour of his team, Ian?

Chappell: The captain, and it is in the laws of cricket, has got to control his team, and I think Ponting is well aware of that. And, Ponting has a history, when he has made a mistake himself personally, or his team has, he has faced up to them, so I have no doubt that he will do the same after what has happened in Sydney. But to ask him, or any other captain, to worry about what the opposition is doing and saying is absolute nonsense and that is a recipe for disaster, and I am not surprised that it has helped create what has happened since the Sydney Test.

Manjrekar: Finally, gentlemen what is the way forward. How do we tackle this? We are all in agreement that the umpires should be given more responsibility to handle such matters, but do you see, perhaps, the administrators getting one more line in the blue book saying that no chatter would be allowed. Do you think something like that will happen, or better sense will prevail, Kumar?

Sangakkara: The game will be poorer if they do that, and I think it will be a lot more boring to go there and play cricket. But I think what we can do is: empower the umpires to deal with everything on the field, so that you don't have a spillover from what happens on the field to the media and to the ICC. If the media asks the question, you should be able to give a straight answer: "Yes, we have dealt with on the field." And that's the end of the matter. I think the players and the captains also have the responsibility in the sense that you cannot control what the opposition tells you, but of course you can ask your team to make sure that whatever is said is not racially or, in any other way, personally abusive to your opponent. I think that is not too much to ask from your players, and I am sure players themselves will respond positively to such a request from their own team.

I think that is the way forward - empower the umpires, back them up and then trust the players and ask them to be the example that they are supposed to be. Play the game hard, have words said in the middle, and that will never go away from cricket or any other sport, I will say. But make sure that there is nothing said that cannot be dealt with on the field by the on-field officials and the players and captains themselves.

Manjrekar: Ian, final thoughts from you please?

Chappell: I think the problem could be sorted out fairly easily, but like all the problems in cricket, at the moment, there is no way in the wide world that it's going to get sorted out while you [have] got the ICC set up the way it is. The ICC has never worked, it didn't work back when I was playing, but they got away with it because there were a lot less teams. Now, their incompetence is shown to the world, almost every other day, and in the last few months we have seen it numerous times and I have absolutely no faith that the administrators will get this right. Till the ICC is restructured and becomes the body that administers in the best interest of cricket, lot of these problems will continue to happen.

Manjrekar: Well, I think that gives us a subject for discussion in our next Cricinfo Round Table, as to how ICC can be a body that Ian Chappell learns to respect. I think that could be a good subject for discussion. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us on Cricinfo Round Table.