When temper took the wing at India & Australia's second Test

With Christmas not too far ahead, it’s gotta be time for some good old one-horse open sledging. And with India touring Australia in the antipodal summer, tempers have to be flying as high as a Bumrah beamer. On Monday, on the fourth day of the second Test in Perth, tempers did take wing with umpires having to intervene. Sourcing the origin of a scrap is always a dodgy exercise — whether in politics or in cricket.

Some (read: self-styled patriots who equate cricket with national pride no matter who’s at fault) will point to Indian captain Virat Kohli starting things when he kept needling the Australian batting side in their second innings — especially after a caught-behind appeal against Aussie skipper Tim Paine was turned down. While others (read: self-styled patriots who equate cricket with national pride no matter who’s at fault) will state that the jaw-jaw started after Paine passed a snide one about the need for his counterpart ‘trying to be cool today’ after ‘losing’ it yesterday.

While we can happily tut-tut to this kind of on-field behaviour, frankly, we’re all for this type of alpha male (or female, for that matter) ’armless ’ostility. Since Australia and India will never, inshallah, go to war, players can certainly wind each other up. The proof of the good sport, after all, is in the winning — without cheating, of course.