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So who is right? Gavaskar? Or the Big Guns ranged against him: Ponting, Border, Lehmann, McGrath, Brad Hodge (Brad, who?) and Tony Greig? The answer to this question depends, I suppose, on whether you are Down Under or not, because the Big Guns firing at Gavaskar are all Australians, except for Tony Greig, who most people would regard as an honorary Australian anyway.

I expect more firearms, big or small, to start firing. They will be all Australian. Or honorary Australian. In case you haven’t guessed, an honorary Australian is a gentleman who isn’t a gentleman, at least on the cricket field. He is either all aggro, in a nasty kind of way, or he is snide, in an underhand kind of way. Steve and twin brother Mark are examples from the same family of these two types of Aussie cricketers. We all know of Steve Waugh’s famous remark to Herschelle Gibbs, when the South African dropped the easiest of catches: “So how does it feel to drop the World Cup?” Lesser known is Mark’s needling of an English batsman. “You know,” Mark said to him as he took guard, “you really aren’t good enough to play for England.” “Maybe,” the Englishman replied, “But at least I am the best player in my family.”

I am sure I am not the only cricket lover whose admiration for the Waugh twins as cricketers was as high as could be. And I am sure I am not the only one who felt let down by their on-field behaviour.It’s the same with Glen McGrath. And let me quickly add here that I am not some misty-eyed romantic who believes that cricket is a gentleman’s game. It never was, not even in the ‘Good Old Days’. In fact, in the same good old days, there were two separate gates for cricketers to enter and leave the field,one marked ‘Gentlemen’, the other, ‘Players’. ‘Gentlemen’ were well-off men who didn’t earn money from the game, whereas ‘Players’ were the less privileged, who needed the cash. Harold Larwood, a coal miner, was a Player and it’s often speculated that a Gentleman captain like Douglas Jardine gave him the dirty job of bodyline bowling because Larwood needed the money, so couldn’t say no.

Today everyone is a player, but very few are gentlemen. There’s McGrath and his frequent outbursts of petulant temper. There was Mark Waugh and his tasteless mutterings from the slips. To give one instance: Graham Thorpe, for quite some time England’s premier batsman, was going through a marriage breakdown because of his wife’s affair. “So who is Mrs Thorpe sleeping with tonight?” was Waugh’s audible speculation whenever Thorpe took guard.

The Australian problem lies in the mindset. While Bradman was as Australian as you can get, there are no reports that he resorted to sledging. He didn’t have to; his bat did all the talking. Similarly, Viv Richards didn’t intimidate his opponents by being rude to them; he just bludgeoned the bowling. And as Gavaskar has pointed out, the dreaded West Indies quicks bowled so intimidatingly that no words were necessary.

But the modern day Australian, particularly under the captaincy of Steve Waugh and Ponting, seem to believe that rudeness and crudeness are essential parts of a cricketer’s armoury. You could argue that it’s a form of insecurity; that today’s Australians believe that their cricket by itself isn’t good enough to beat their opponents, unless they have been softened up first. This often leads to incidents like Michael Slater’s arguing with umpire Venkatraghavan in the Bombay Test, or Darren Lehman’s racist outburst for which he was handed a ban. The Waugh-Ponting effect also travels outside their teams, as bad habits often do. Is there an uglier sight in Test cricket today than Andre Nel’s abusive behaviour when he is bowling? Does our Sreesanth not overdo his aggro? There should be a ban on the export of Australian boorishness.

Why don’t other cricketers join Sunil Gavaskar’s side? I am not surprised, though, that it was Gavaskar who took this stand. From his playing days, he has been a combative man.The difference between him and Waugh and Ponting is this: Gavaskar knew the difference between being combative and being loutish.