Cricket: Sledging may be just first salvo in war

There has been a sledging row. Or at least there has been some sledging to which Australia took exception (poor lambs) and the watching media were only too prepared to sense the ingredients of a full-blown, old-fashioned bust-up.

Next thing you know, cables will be exchanged and diplomatic relations will break down.

What actually happened nobody knows because the protagonists ain't saying, but suffice to say it is the sort of spat which Douglas Jardine and Ray Illingworth might have had before breakfast. It seems there was an altercation on the first day of the second test at Adelaide, between Jimmy Anderson and Brad Haddin.

At the close, after England had faced one over, first Haddin and then Ricky Ponting upbraided the England captain, Andrew Strauss. England dismissed the episode as inconsequential.

On the one hand, they decline every invitation to comment on the opposition. On other hand, it is clear they are letting the opposition know of their presence.

Anderson is perpetually growling and on the batsman's case and Matt Prior, the wicketkeeper, is not noticeably quiet. It is part of the overall strategy - act as models of decorum where the opposition are concerned off the field, let 'em have it on it.

At Adelaide four years ago, Paul Collingwood sledged Shane Warne, who responded by compiling a significant innings of 43. Collingwood was far from contrite and later confided he wished he had upped the ante.

There will be no quietening down from England this time. Before long there might even be a proper row. Somebody will say, as the Australia captain, Bill Woodfull, did to the England manager, Pelham Warner, at Adelaide at the height of Bodyline in 1933: "There are two sides out there and one of them is trying to play cricket and one isn't."

- INDEPENDENT