Verbals from Merv Hughes (right) crushed Graeme Hick’s fragile confidence during the 1993 Ashes series - Getty Images/David MundenSimon BriggsFri, November 28, 2025 at 6:00 AM UTC·8 min readThe Ashes were born in a cauldron of rage and resentment, otherwise known as the Oval Cricket Ground, on August 29, 1882.
In what was only the ninth Test match ever played, that notorious cad and bounder WG Grace ran out Australia’s Sammy Jones when he wandered out of his crease – Jonny Bairstow style – to pat down a divot on the pitch.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn reply, Australia’s most feared bowler – Frederick “The Demon” Spofforth – stormed into the England dressing room to announce: “This will lose you the match.” It was the first recorded sledge, and Spofforth lived up to his words as he claimed seven wickets, leaving England an agonising seven runs shy of their target.
The dictionary defines sledging as “the practice of making taunting, teasing or intimidating remarks to an opposing player, especially a batter, in order to disturb their concentration”.
And it is perhaps appropriate that the history of sledging should start with an Aussie. Our antipodean cousins have pioneered the art, to the point where verbals are as closely associated with Australian cricketing culture as the Haka is with the All Blacks.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Australians even came up with the name itself, which stemmed from a chance exchange at a post-match barbecue in the early 1970s. The coinage developed after New South Wales fast bowler Grahame Corling made a coarse remark to John Benaud, embarrassing Benaud’s female companion. After Benaud had replied that Corling was “about as subtle as a sledgehammer”, the verb “to sledge” caught on.
On delving into the early history of the Ashes, we find occasional English exponents of sledging, including not only WG but also Sydney Barnes, the greatest bowler of the early 20th Century, whom one contemporary noted for his “humiliating verbal scorn”. But the sport’s close association with Victorian morality tended to keep a lid on things.
In Australia, by contrast, cricket has always had a wilder, more virile edge – as we might expect from a people who can hardly go down to the beach without holding a tallest-sandcastle competition. From Adelaide to Wagga Wagga, the culture is full of what the locals call “mongrel”. Wicketkeepers growl, close fielders yap, fast bowlers foam at the mouth. If the English game likes to see itself as a distinguished public school, Australia’s is more of a borstal.
Only last month, the former England captain Graham Gooch told Telegraph Sport about his eye-opening experiences of representing Perth’s Nedlands suburb in the winter of 1976-77. “When words were exchanged in county cricket it was done with humour, not nasty or have an edge to it,” Gooch said. “But in Australia they were in your face. Things like when you got out it would be: ‘Back to the nets, sonny.’”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLest this article come across like a giant deflection exercise, we should at least acknowledge the one moment when England outdid their old adversaries in the hard-ball stakes. I’m talking about the 1932-33 “Bodyline” series, in which Douglas Jardine – exasperated by Don Bradman’s effortless superiority – instructed his battalion of fast bowlers to aim at the head. These tactics caused an exchange of diplomatic cables and the eventual ostracism of both Jardine and his main enforcer Harold Larwood, who ironically wound up settling in Australia.
But then Jardine was an anomaly: an icy Scotsman who had grown up in a remote castle, and developed his winner-takes-all attitude long before he played for either Surrey or England. He also had the advantage of four express fast bowlers. It’s hard to practise effective sledging when your medium-pacers are going around the park, and your fielders have been scattered to the winds – yet this often seems to be the fate of English captains.
Bodyline remains the biggest grievance in Ashes history, to the point where Channel 10 screened a mini-series in 1984, starring Hugo Weaving – more recently the chief baddie from The Matrix – as Jardine. The sharpest moment in the series comes when Jardine knocks on Australia’s dressing-room door to complain that he had overheard a close fielder calling him a b------. Vic Richardson, the home vice-captain, looks around the dressing-room and barks: “Alright, which one of you b-------- called this b------ a b------?”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAh, yes. The humour of sledging. So far, I’ve been focusing on what the great Australia captain Steve Waugh referred to as “mental disintegration”: the sort of weaponised hostility that Merv Hughes used to crush Graeme Hick’s fragile confidence during the 1993 Ashes series. Not witty. Not clever. Just harsh.
But sledging often attempts to be comedic, even among the hard-bitten Aussies. Indeed, Hughes – who affected an enormous moustache in his role as Australia’s pantomime villain – was also credited with a number of cheesy aphorisms. Things like: “I’ll bowl you a piano, see if you can play that.” Or, “If you turn the bat over, you’ll find the instructions on the other side”.
Hughes always ramped up the hostility against England - Getty Images/Ben RadfordTime for a confession. A few years ago, while writing a light-hearted history of the Ashes, I chucked all these lines in despite suspecting that they had been cooked up by the cricket writers of the day. My scepticism only grew when the former England captain Michael Atherton published an autobiography. “He was all bristle and bulls---,” Atherton wrote of Hughes, “and I couldn’t make out what he was saying, except that every sledge ended with ‘a---wipe’.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAccording to Atherton’s account of the 1989 Ashes, Hughes’s strike partner, Geoff Lawson, was equally unsophisticated, offering sledging that “contained no overtones of humour or wit”. We do not seem to be dealing with Peter Ustinov and Ronnie Corbett here. And yet, when I contacted Peter Hayter – the long-serving cricket correspondent who also ghosted autobiographies for Ian Botham and Phil Tufnell – he insisted that the stories are kosher.
“The thing with lines like the piano, or ‘Turn the bat over’, is that these were old staples which had probably been used for 50 years before Merv came out with them,” said Hayter. “Occasionally you’d get a little variation, like when Merv told Robin Smith ‘You can’t f---ing bat,’ only for Smith to hit him for four and say: ‘Hey Merv, we make a fine pair: I can’t f---ing bat and you can’t f---ing bowl.’”
What about the great Richardson quote? Could that have been invented by a clever scriptwriter? “Absolutely not,” replied Hayter. “I remember my dad” – who was a press-box legend in his own right during the 1950s and 60s – “telling me about it when I was a kid. And for my dad, facts were sacred.” Even when they were also profane.
Here are the greatest sledges in Ashes history in chronological order:
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementTwenty great Ashes sledges through time
“All Australians are uneducated, and an unruly mob.”England captain Douglas Jardine to Australia batsman ‘Stork’ Hendry, on the 1928-29 Ashes tour.
“There are two teams out there. One is playing cricket. The other is not.”Australia captain Bill Woodfull to MCC tour manager Pelham Warner, less than an hour after Woodfull had been hit over the heart by a Harold Larwood lifter. From the Bodyline series of 1932-33.
“Well bowled, Harold.”Jardine’s response to the same incident.
“Leave our flies alone, Jardine. They’re the only flamin’ friends you’ve got here.”Wag on the Sydney Hill, same series.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Hey Warr, you’ve got as much chance of taking a wicket in this series as I have of pushing a pound of butter up a parrot’s a--- with a hot needle.”Taunting cry from a “wharfie” in Sydney as the 1950-51 Ashes tourists docked. Middlesex’s John Warr did eventually manage to claim one wicket in his 73 eight-ball overs.
“It’s amazing, young Colin. They keep picking this joker, Compton – I suppose for his looks – but I’ve been bowling him this same ball since 1946 and he still doesn’t wake up to it.”Aussie hellraiser Keith Miller to the young Colin Cowdrey, after drawing a play and miss from his drinking buddy Denis Compton. Melbourne, 1954.
“It’s not fair. Look who you’ve got on your side.”Australia captain Ian Johnson, after losing a vital toss at Old Trafford in 1956 and looking up to the players’ balcony, where England’s No 3 – the Reverend David Sheppard – was still wearing his clerical robes.
“Kid yourself it’s a Sunday, Rev, and put your hands together.”Fred Trueman sledges his own team-mate, David Sheppard again, after Sheppard had dropped a series of catches at slip on the 1962-63 Ashes tour.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“There’s a piece of s--- on the end of your bat.”Regular quip from Australia’s fast-bowling giant Dennis Lillee to novice opponents during the 1970s. Lillee would wait for the credulous victim to inspect the toe of his bat before continuing “No, the other end.”
“How’s your wife and my kids?”Australia wicketkeeper Rod Marsh to legendary England all-rounder Ian Botham, some time in the late 1970s. There was an even punchier response, but in these days of cultural sensitivities and trigger warnings, you’ll have to Google it.
“Who’s this then? Father f---ing Christmas?”Aussie quick Jeff Thomson when the bespectacled and prematurely grey-haired David Steele – described in The Sun as “the bank clerk who went to war” – walked to the wicket in 1975.
“When are your balls going to drop, sonny?”England’s South Africa-born captain Tony Greig to 21-year-old Australia debutant David Hookes, at the 1977 Centenary Test in Melbourne. “I don’t know,” Hookes replied, “but at least I’m playing for my own country.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“No good hitting me there, mate. Nothing to damage.”England batsman Derek Randall to Lillee after suffering a glancing blow on the head during his magisterial 174 at the same 1977 Test in Melbourne.
“At least I have an identity. You’re only Frances Edmonds’s husband.”Australia wicketkeeper Tim Zoehrer to English spinner Phil Edmonds, whose wife Frances had made a splash by writing colourful diaries about England tours. In an unusually cerebral sledging duel, Edmonds and Zoehrer went on to exchange mocking limericks. Melbourne, 1986.
“Does your husband play cricket as well?”All-purpose Merv Hughes sledge, 1980s and 1990s.
“Count ’em yourself, yer Pommy b------.”Even the umpires in Australia have been known to sledge visiting cricketers. This was Lou McConnell to England spinner Phil Tufnell, after Tufnell had asked how many balls were left in the over during the disastrous 1990-91 tour.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“You’ve got to bat on this in a minute, Tuffers. Hospital food suit you?”Aussie paceman Craig McDermott to notorious tailender Tufnell, same tour.
“Hell, Gatt, move out of the way. I can’t see the stumps.”Dennis Lillee to the 37-year-old Mike Gatting, who was by now resembling the ageing Henry VIII, during the traditional tour opener at Perth’s Lilac Hill ground in 1994.
“Let’s have you right under Nasser’s nose.”Australia wicketkeeper Ian Healy, while mischievously placing a fielder yards away at cover during an innings from future England captain Nasser “Beaky” Hussain, 1997.
“Mate, what are you doing out here? There’s no way you’re good enough to play for England.”Australia batsman Mark Waugh to England fast bowler Jimmy Ormond at the Oval in 2001. “Maybe not,” Ormond replied,” but at least I’m the best player in my own family.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd five other sledges from around the world...
“Why are you so fat, Eddo?”Australia paceman Glenn McGrath to his Zimbabwe equivalent Eddo Brandes, at a one-day game in Colombo in 1996. A polite rendering of Brandes’s legendary response would go as follows: “Because every time I kiss your wife, she gives me a biscuit.”
“Daryll, I’ve waited so long for this moment and I’m going to send you straight back to that leather couch.”Australia’s greatest spin bowler Shane Warne to South African batsman Daryll Cullinan, who had unwisely confessed to seeing a sports psychiatrist before a 1997-98 tour of Australia.
“You’re just a fat bus conductor.”World-beating Pakistan batsman Javed Mianded to Merv Hughes, at Adelaide in 1991. Hughes promptly dismissed Miandad and crowed “Tickets, please!”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“It’s red, round, and weighs about five ounces, in case you were wondering.”Glamorgan fast bowler Greg Thomas to West Indian giant Viv Richards, after beating the bat three times during a county match at Sophia Gardens in the mid-1980s. Richards promptly hit the next ball into the River Taff and replied: “You know what it looks like. Now go and find it.”
“Congratulations on taking 800 Test wickets. Every one of them run out.”Former Indian spin-bowling great Bishan Bedi in a message to Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan, who was notoriously no-balled for throwing by Australian umpires in 1995 and 1999.
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