Australia’s form decline caused by curb on sledging: Paul Marsh
The Chief Executive of Cricketers' Association of Australia Paul Marsh has put the blame for Australia’s decline in form on the curbs imposed on sledging by Cricket Australia, after the Sydney Test against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 in 2008.
That Test saw aggression spilling over from both sides, which ended up slapping racism charges on Harbhajan Singh for allegedly calling Andrew Symonds a monkey during the match.
While talking about the sledging restrictions imposed on the Australians, Marsh said, “I think there is no doubt the team's performance has been affected. Hard, aggressive cricket is in the Australian team's DNA and unfortunately the players started second-guessing
their natural instincts in the heat of battle for fear of reprisal from Cricket Australia or a public backlash from the vocal minority. I know for a fact that many of the opposition teams were seeking to exploit what they now saw as a weakness in the Australian
team."
Marsh felt that Cricket Australia over reacted by banning sledging because the Australians have always played cricket with aggression and sledging has always been a part of the players wearing the yellow and green.
Talking about the events after the Sydney Test, he said, “After the Indian Test in Sydney, CA called a meeting of all players, CA senior management, some board directors and myself to discuss the way the Australian team was playing the game and was being
perceived by the public. There was a directive given by CA that the team needed to change its on-field behaviour. At the time, many of the players disagreed with this directive. However, they took the feedback they were receiving on board and there was an
immediate noticeable change in the way the team played the game."
Marsh believes that Australia were winning everywhere in the world, against every team, there was simply nothing impossible for the Aussies but then some people in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 started thinking that winning no longer requires the players to express aggression
and so they were instructed to mellow down their behaviour. Australia have always played cricket with aggression and to ask the players to mellow down was just unjustified.
Now the aggression is gone and with that Australia have also lost their winning streak. However, Aussie coach Tim Neilsen believes that because the current Australian side is young so there is a definite lack of aggression because http://www.senore.com/Cricket/A-Young-c41367 guy who has just
made it to the national side would not intimidate any opposition in the world by showing his aggression.
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