Summer Hill Cricket Club is proud to be a part of The Pledge not 2 Sledge. 

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The PN2S is a commitment we are asking you, our players and your team officials to make. 

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What is sledging?

 

Sledging is bullying:  any remarks designed to break the batter’s concentration or confidence is sledging. Don’t do it.

Sledging is not: positive things like talking up the field, encouraging the bowler and good-natured talk amongst the fielding side. These are all encouraged as a positive aspect of teamwork. Do it. 

 

While some professional cricketers have developed notoriety as sledgers, the SHCC Committee believes there is no place for sledging in Junior and Senior Cricket. We see it as a form of bullying.

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Bullying is the use of aggression with the intention of hurting or unsettling another person. 

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Bullying can be:

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• Emotional : being unfriendly, excluding and ignoring someone as though they don’t exist, tormenting (eg removing or hiding someone else’s kit without their permission, threatening gestures), causing someone to feel afraid

• Physical : pushing, kicking, hitting, punching or any use of violence, damaging, physically man-handling someone under the guise of ‘horseplay’, making physical threats

• Racist : racial taunts, graffiti, gestures

• Sexual : unwanted physical contact or sexually abusive comments, expressing sexual comments about another person

• Homophobic : because of, or focusing on the issue of sexuality

• Verbal : name-calling, sarcasm, spreading rumours, teasing, putting down, ridiculing 

• Social/Cyber : All areas of internet, such as e-mail, Twitter & Facebook. Mobile threats by text messaging and calls. 

 

Everybody has the right to be treated with respect and dignity

 

Sledging is mostly thought off as behaviour directed towards your opponents but it can also be directed at your own team mates.

• It is not acceptable to sledge players in an opposing team.

• It is not acceptable to sledge a member of your own team.

• Remember the Golden Rule - Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do  to you. 

 

Sledging or bullying a member of your own team is just as unsporting as sledging or bullying a member of an opposing team. 

 

Summer Hill CC will not tolerate its members bullying members of opposing teams.

 

Summer Hill CC will not tolerate its members bullying members of their own teams. 

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Cricket is a team sport and without all your team mates, you cannot play cricket.  Members of Summer Hill CC who are bullying anyone need to learn different ways of behaving. If someone from your own team sledges or bullies you, notify your Captain or Coach and ask them to talk to the player concerned to explain why what they said is unacceptable and sledging.

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Why does SHCC want to take a stand against sledging?

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Sledging kills the fun of cricket! It's just not cricket.

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If you are ridiculed or threatened while you are playing, it follows that you will not enjoy yourself and may not want to keep playing. This is not in the interests of the game or you as a player.

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The Spirit of Cricket, in the MCC Laws of Cricket, stipulates that teams shall not “direct abusive language towards other players or an umpire.” Our PN2S is one of the ways our club can ensure SHCC teams play according to the Spirit and the Laws of Cricket.

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We want you to learn to learn to be good sports – an important life skill on and off the field. Part of good sportsmanship is learning to lose with grace and win with humility. Sledging has no part in good sportsmanship.

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What if other teams sledge you?

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We can’t control the behaviour of other teams. We can only ensure a fair and respectful standard in our own game which we hope will returned in kind by our opponents.

If an opposition team engages in sledging, notify your Captain or Coach so that they can mention it to the other Captain, Coach or Umpire, if there is an umpire.  They can then speak to the player concerned, asking them to stop and to play cricket in the right spirit of the game. 

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Fielders are not allowed to speak to you while the bowler is running in. This is very bad sportsmanship. If this happens, notify your Captain or Coach immediately.

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Your Captain or Coach can also tell you about ways to deal with comments from sledgers. 

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Sledging generally stops if you start outplaying your opponents and get them on the back foot, so outplay them rather than responding in kind. Sledging can backfire on sledgers as it can cause the sledgers to lose focus on the game leading to unforced errors by the sledgers.

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Ultimately team officials and parent groups will need to support you to do the right thing when it comes to sledging – that is, Pledge Not 2 Sledge.

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