Warner’s walk shows that the line between a sledge being funny and it being mean is too thin

SLEDGING might be rife in sport, but that doesn’t make it right. And as light is shed on the growing mental health crisis in professional sport, Nat von Bertouch argues that perhaps it’s time to ditch the sledge.

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I WAS sledged once. About 10 years ago when I was playing for the Diamonds and we were on a tour of England.

I was calling for the ball and an English player yelled at my teammate: “Yeah, throw it to her, she can’t catch”.

It was so disconcerting because sledging is not rife in netball and wasn’t something that I had ever experienced before.

But, soon, those eight little words became like a worm, burying their way into my head: “Can’t I catch? Maybe I can’t catch!”

David Warner walks off the field after being sledged in a local cricket game in Sydney. Picture: Jenny Evans

Not long after, I actually dropped the ball and it was at that point that I pulled it all together and started playing better than before.

So, yes, I was sledged once. But it didn’t work.

I was reminded of this instance again last weekend as I watched footage of banned Australian cricketer David Warner walking from the field in a grade game in Sydney after he was allegedly called a “disgrace”.

There’s no doubt that cricket is full of sledging. Search the internet and it’s filled with sites detailing the top sledges of all time; sledges that are still allowed; sledges to copy; funniest sledges. Similar lists exist for the AFL too.

I asked my husband Jace and he admitted to the occasional footy-field sledge while playing for Norwood. But he couldn’t tell me why he does it — other than to try to get under an opponent’s skin — and then admitted that it doesn’t seem to work. So, if a sledge is as limited on tactics as it appears, why do it?

Jason Hughes walks past Dave Warner.

This Warner incident has cemented for me the belief that we shouldn’t treat a sporting field any differently to other workplaces. We are all human beings, we all deserve respect and if saying something mean to someone is unacceptable in any other workplace, then it should be unacceptable on the field too.

Something that I have written about before — and am extremely passionate about — is bringing into the light the fact that there is a mental health crisis in professional sport: depression and anxiety rates for elite athletes are soaring. Surely, sledging would only be adding to that.

But what the Warner example shows is that the line between a sledge being creative or funny and that same sledge being mean, is far too thin.

The player who sledged Warner — Jason Hughes, the brother of late Test and Redbacks cricketer Phil — surely didn’t expect him to march from the field, but it shows that his words had likely shifted in Warner’s mind from banter to bullying. And there’s the line.

I don’t doubt that Warner has sledged his opponents before, but watching him walk from the field after being called a “disgrace”, I hope that he’s now going to rethink ever sledging another player again and I hope that he makes an example of himself and becomes a part of a new, kinder era in Australian cricket.

And that’s why I don’t support sledging. And I encourage all sportspeople — elite or not — to stop the mean talk; playing good, old-fashioned, dogged sport is all the talking you should ever need to do.