Parliament of soils

I couldn’t get back into the game after the rain delay yesterday, but I did enjoy, during same rain delay, a chat between Drew Morphett and Ravi Shastri. The topic of sledging came up among general reflections on the Test tour, and Shastri said that he encouraged young Indian players to welcome the sledging they might receive in Australia, as “it can only improve your vocabulary.” The highlight however was when Drew asked him if he could share any memorable sledging moments on air and Shastri demurred on the grounds that the exchanges involved “unparliamentary language”.

Spectacular turn of phrase. And not just a turn of phrase, I discovered: parliaments all over the world have officially deemed certain words or phrases to be “inappropriate for use in the House whilst it is in session”, by the same stroke creating a valuable resource for sledgers with sledging block.

Wiki provides a list of invective by country and date, with Canada featuring prominently for some reason (they do seem a bit strict) and New Zealand contributing some impressive antipodean colour. I take pleasure in imagining some of the following repartée:

Hilfenhaus: You, sir, came into the world by accident (Canada, 1886) and are lacking in intelligence (Canada, 1934).

Kohli: And you, sir, are a bag of wind (Canada, 1878) inspired by forty-rod whiskey (Canada, 1881).

MS Dhoni: Trained seal (Canada, 1961)

Michael Clarke: Highway bandit (Norway, 2009)

MS Dhoni: Pompous ass (Canada, 1967)

Michael Clarke: Piece of shit (Canada, 2011)

Haddin: You have the energy of a tired snail returning home from a funeral (New Zealand, 1963)

Laxman: Yeah? Your brains could revolve inside a peanut shell for a thousand years without touching the sides (New Zealand, 1949)

Tony Greig: 臭罌出臭草 (Hong Kong, 1996: "foul grass grows out of a foul ditch", )

Tom Parker: 仆街 (Hong Kong, 2009: literally "stumble on street", akin to the English "go die") 

In the light of recent switch hitting events, I particularly like the potential uses for girouette, meaning "weathervane" and banned from Quebec parliament in 2007.

Ashwin: You, sir, are a girouette (Québec 2007)

Dave Warner: Sticks and stones, you dim-witted saboteur (Canada, 1956)

Ashwin: Oh, fuddle duddle (Canada, 1971, euphemistic substitution for "fuck off"*).

Wiki says that in 1997, the terms “liar” and “dumbo” were ruled unacceptable in Australian parliament, but on the whole you can’t read the Wiki article on unparliamentary language without coming away with the impression that what is unparliamentary language in the rest of the world is Australian parliament’s meat and potatoes. More specifically the impression that Paul Keating’s advisors had standing instructions to alert him the moment an item was banned from Irish parliament so he could splice together tirades wholly from their cutting-room floor. To wit: brat, buffoon, chancer, communist, corner boy, coward, fascist, fatty, gurrier, guttersnipe, hypocrite, rat, scumbag, scurrilous speaker, yahoo. Either that or Irish parliament took PJK as its model of disorderliness.

* This is what Pierre Trudeau effectively claimed to have said when accused of mouthing the words "fuck off" at the opposition, and this incident would be a valuable defence for players against Channel 9's lip-reading exercises.

Come in sucker*

*Paul Keating to John Howard, sometime.

This is what might have been the headline of today's cricket column by Paul Keating, if he had one. I so wish Paul Keating had a cricket column. Ponting's on the cover of the Sydney Morning Herald today, but above him is Paul Keating chewing out the Labor Party for being obscurantist neanderthals practicing sicko populism. Sigh. Maybe he could be a writer for the slip cordon. Shane Warne would certainly have embraced the opportunity to tell someone he was going to do them slowly.

Ponting joined the Australian cricket team in the same year Labor began their 16-year reign in New South Wales, time will tell how long he'll outlast them. If he doesn't make runs I can't see the pressure for him to go letting up any.

I've written about my feelings about Ponting before, which is a reminder of how long this business has been going on. At this stage I'm just grateful of the shift in the conversation. I can cope with Clarke as captain, but the only reason I can see for Shane Watson being appointed vice-captain is that he looks like he'll stick around for a while and he's not a wicket-keeper. I wonder if Haddin would have had more of a chance if the current referral system hadn't been put in place?