Pyrrhic Comedy

So I learned about something new today.

Like any honest American, I don’t know jack shit about cricket. Apparently you play it with wickets, or something? And you wear high socks, and it’s proper fucking gentlemanly. Americans have a tendency to think of anything that the English do that we don’t as being a gentlemanly habit for us to simultaneously deride and glamourize, but for some reason, cricket is even more uselessly sophisticated in our collective imagination than a pinky out for tea.

My husband started laughing at his computer today. I asked him what he was looking at.

“It’s a list of sledging quotes,” he told me.

“What’s sledging?” I asked.

Sledging, as it turns out, is when a cricket player on one team straight up filthy fucking slams a cricket player on the other team, in order to break his concentration. Apparently this is normal and everybody does it. Obviously, it’s a tradition that started with the Australian players, but it was so effective that it became common practice.

Now, all of the other teams in the Commonwealth are so used to the Australian players sledging them that they’ve gotten better at comebacks than the Australians are at slams. A few quotes:

From an Australia v. Zimbabwe match:

Glenn McGrath (Australia): “Why are you so fucking fat?”

Eddo Brandes (Zimbabwe): “Because every time I fuck your wife, she gives me a biscuit.”

Pure class.

Or how about Australia’s Mark Waugh (twin brother of then-captain Steve Waugh) to England’s rookie player, Jimmy Ormond:

Mark Waugh: “There’s no way you’re good enough to play for England.”

Jimmy Ormund: “Maybe not, but at least I’m the best cricketer in my family.”

A daily reminder to love and respect the British and their many cultural contributions to the world, and to keep in mind that they had chavvy douchebags before we had a fucking country.