I don’t think anyone has ever really had a problem with Australians who show backbone, aren’t afraid to stick up for themselves, and have a dig.
I also don’t think anyone really needs to actually use ‘abuse’ as a tactic. But it was used for a time
As history tells us PB, and being well read on the subject - Waugh's 'mental disintegration' tactic was solely to have the batsmen thinking about anything else except batting. Did they cross the line occasionally, sure, did Waugh tolerate such incidents, no doubt.
Ponting, who was a large part of this era then refined the tactic as skipper later and asked his troops to talk about the batsmen in earshot and never directly to them. Clarke also adopted similar and if you recall the time when George Bailey and Jimmy Anderson exchanged verbal's in 2013, with Clarke then interjecting which ended up a rare 'cross the line' incident.
The incident derived initially from a jovial Bailey (on debut) talking to the slips/WK about having a quick beer and some pizza during the imminent change of innings, but then he started softly singing a Barmy Army song while the bowler was running in. Anderson sick of Bailey's waffle then tells him to shut his gob or he'd shut it for him..! So when Clarke steps in to defend Bailey, we then hear Clarke's infamous "Get ready for a f**ing broken arm" to Anderson on the stump microphone..
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