In 1979, Bill O'Reilly used his column in the Sydney Morning Heraldto get something off his chest.
HOW FAR DO YOU PUSH THE LIMITS?
What the South Africa-Australia series told us about shame culture
Both Steven Smith and David Warner were banned for 12 months from international and state cricket by CA. © AFP
"Since 'sledging' was introduced into the cricket vocabulary a few years ago," wrote the Australian spinner-turned-writer, "there has been a noticeable decline in the standards of acceptable behaviour between rival teams that cricket has suffered immeasurably. Sledging is the word minted to describe the modern practice of talking an opponent into error."
It is a neat term in the way that it allows cricketers to get away with what a lot of it really is: shaming.
In light of events in the series between South Africa and Australia, it is worth exploring the role that shame plays in cricket, and how sport is so often used as a vehicle by the wider shame culture.
Sledging is the obvious place to start, since the on-field relations between players set the tone, and there is an important distinction to make here. Some of my most enjoyable moments on a cricket field have involved humorous quips (and let's face it, the lower the level of cricket, the more of these one tends to have). But there is a difference between saying something to a batsman with the intention of laughing with him or her, and denigrating an opponent.
Brene Brown, an American researcher who has dedicated much of her career to investigating shame and its effects, describes shame as "the fear of disconnection". It's a definition that looks like the easiest way to determine where "the line" should really be. A shared joke with an opposing player creates connection in a manner that most of us like to see as a key domain of sport. Barracking a batsman with an expletive-ridden tirade in "the Australian way", as both Steven Smith and Faf du Plessis referred to it during the Durban Test, sows the fear of disconnection.
There were other acts of shaming in Durban, such as Nathan Lyon dropping the ball on AB de Villiers after he had been run out, and David Warner doing his utmost to shame Aiden Markram for de Villiers's dismissal - rather than celebrating his own fine piece of fielding. But Cricket Australia can hardly wash their hands of such behaviour. After all, whose idea was it to have those giant hands at the Ashes presentation ceremony?
Some might think that this sounds soft. Certainly South Africa's reaction to Australia's verbal onslaught in the first Test was to dismiss it as "expected", with du Plessis adding "we are big men playing sport for our countries". Smith said something similar after Durban, while Vernon Philander added: "We are men. If we were schoolboys playing then it would be different."
Such frequent mentions - all within a few days of each other - indicated the importance of masculinity to the players. But they also spoke to the ways in which men experience shame, according to Brown's research. When she asked men to define shame, there were some clear findings - for men, shame is failure, but it is also showing any kind of weakness or fear.
Perhaps this is why verbal shaming has become such an accepted part of the men's game. To do so is perceived as exuding strength, but it also reflects a trend from wider society. "We live in a world where most people still subscribe to the belief that shame is a good tool for keeping people in line," Brown writes in her book, Daring Greatly.
That was evident not only in Quinton de Kock's
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