Any sledging from Aussies during India series would feel hollow considering their dire predicament

Silence is really golden and a sledge rarely gives the perpetrator the edge. ROBERT CRADDOCK suggests the out-of-form Aussies refrain from any sharp verbal taunts against India star Virat Kohli.

The Aussies would be best advised to say nothing to Virat Kohli.

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The great debate over how lippy Australia should be on a cricket field has missed one important question … is sledging overrated?

Is it literally hot air? Mounting evidence says, yes.

Just before leaving Australia for perhaps the last time this month South Africa captain Faf du Plessis explained that part of the reason seven of his 19 international centuries came against Australia was because they baited him and he wallowed in it.

The Aussies would be best advised to say nothing to Virat Kohli.

The South Africa captain almost needed the verbals to drive him to the limits of his ability to the point where he felt a curious vacuum when he played other nations and secretly wished he could find someone to detonate his fuse.

Du Plessis also urged Australia to give the silent treatment to India great Virat Kohli because he fed off the aggression.

Du Plessis and Kohli are not the first cricketers to feel this way.

Even Michael Clarke admitted this week that David Warner baited rivals in the hope they would bait him back when he was batting and stir the tiger within.

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A few weeks ago I sat down with Ian Chappell to record an interview for Cricket Legends and he said the two most fearsome fast bowlers he faced were England’s John Snow and West Indian Andy Roberts who were particularly unnerving not because they sledged but because they never said a word.

You never knew what they were thinking.

Just like the great Richard Hadlee who never bothered sledging because he sensed a knowing, dismissive grin was far more unsettling.

And then there is the issue of context.

Faf du Plessis says he feeds off any aggression from opponents.

The sledge and the swagger can go together like a one-two punch when you win but when you are as out of form, as Australia are, they look ridiculous.

Australia have won just six of 24 games of cricket in all formats since the ball tampering affair so any sharp verbal taunts would have a decisively hollow ring about them.

A few years ago when Australia were being towelled up in a 50-over game in South Africa, former Test opener Kepler Wessels was staggered Matthew Wade was still obnoxious enough to launch verbal tirades from behind the stumps.

“There was a time when Australian teams used sledging cleverly as a strategy,” Wessels said at the time.

“The mindless babble that this group have resorted to is both embarrassing and totally ineffective.”

Maybe Australia should simply play the game the way young quick Pat Cummins does.

Cummins somehow finds just the right temperature which is hot enough to radiate a threat yet respectful enough to be within the game’s spirit and laws and rarely changes no matter what is happening in the game.

It sounds simple but for Australia it is a hard place to find.

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