Sledging is good, but abuse crosses line, says Langer

London : Australia coach Justin Langer insisted “sledging’s a good thing” as the team prepared to face England in their first series since March’s dramatic ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. Langer, however, stressed that “banter” would not be allowed to descend into “abuse”, as captain Tim Paine promised Australia “won’t be silent” during a five-match ODI series.  After the ball-tampering scandal, there were concerns that sledging or verbal taunts had contributed to a toxic atmosphere between the Australia and South Africa teams. But Langer said that, as far as he was concerned, sledging was just another word for banter.
‘Sledge my daughter’
“In Australia sledging’s a good thing: if I play Uno (a card game) with my daughter we sledge each other,” Langer said at the Lord’s today. “If I play golf with my parents, we sledge each other. There’s a difference between banter and abuse. There’s no room for abuse anywhere,” the former Australia opener added. “Even if we were so nice people would think we’re a bunch of hard-edged Australians. We’ll still be called sledging Australians, it’s been happening for the last 30 years. So we’ll cope with that.” Paine, alongside Langer at the Lord’s, explained: “The thing we’ve spoken about is the difference between abuse and banter. We won’t be silent. We’re going to be speaking, trying to put pressure on teams as we usually do. But we have to be respectful.” Paine added: “I’m sure you’re going to hear us talking through the stump mic. But it’s up to me, Justin and the senior players to stay on the side of banter and never go to abuse. There’s no doubt our reputation took a bit of a battering (in South Africa).”