'We play hard and fair': Waugh

A fortnight after Sunil Gavaskar had a little dig at the Australians during his Spirit of Cricket address at Lord's, Steve Waugh reckoned that television had made too much of too little.

Delivering a talk on "Leading a winning team" in Bangalore, he said, "There is far too much talk of sledging. These days, cricket is played in the right spirit, though occasionally things do go wrong. And when they do go wrong, you have 20 or 30 [television] replays and people come to talk about it."

Waugh was of the opinion that sledging was often misinterpreted, with the critics, more often than not, placing too much faith on conjecture. "My definition of sledging is when someone has been giving personal views in a one-on-one situation, or a group of individuals against one person," he said.

Waugh then perplexed some in the audience when he said that the Australians didn't indulge in sledging. "Occasionally there are things said on the cricket field, and we have examples of it during the last six to 12 months," he said. "I am very aware that we do not want that to happen in my side as we play the game hard and fair," he added, in an oblique reference to the Glenn McGrath-Ramnaresh Sarwan incident which so tarnished Australia's 3-1 series win in the West Indies.

Waugh also spoke about the strength of character and magnificent team spirit that have made Australia peerless. "The key is the characters we pick in our team," he said. He then cited Justin Langer - who spent over a year practising how to hit the slow bowlers over the infield - and Andrew Bichel as examples of the work ethic and attention to detail that have given Australia the edge.

Bichel has been a fringe player for most of his career, but Waugh said his selfless spirit was an inspiration to the rest of the side. "If someone hits a century or gets five wickets, he [Bichel] takes a photo with his camera and says, 'Here is a momento'. He did a lot of things to make the side what it is," he said.

Waugh said the team was looking forward to the Indian tour next year. Their last attempt at conquering what was referred to as "the last frontier" ended in a 1-2 defeat in 2001. "It's a big challenge to win in India," he said. "India are a great side on the home soil."

Waugh is in India to promote certain charities and also to fulfil some commercial obligations.