"It's the beauty of our game really; there is a gentlemanly aspect to the game and we get challenged on this. Australia has been nominated as the best sledgers and we get asked the question a lot of time but in reality its actually a mis-truth or certainly an exaggerated truth."What the world has done following the success of Australian cricket is to try and vilify us. And that's fair enough as the best in the world need to be taken down. So we always had to be on our guard and understand within that we need to address the issue before anyone else does,"
Hayden said the Australian team has discussed the image of being the bad boys of international cricket and the ways of sledging.
"You tell me what are these incidents of bad boys. I don't think we are. But yes, we senior players do sit together and work out where we want to go and how we want to play our cricket. Also, making comments can be distracting to some characters. If someone is forced to do that without it being a motivating factor then its trouble."
He believes every team has a few characters that get involved in sledging. "I think in any given side, there are always two or three people that look to sledge. In the Indian side, it would be Sreesanth, Harbhajan and (Robin) Uthappa. You wouldn't hear a boo out of Rahul (Dravid), MS (Dhoni) and (Anil) Kumble though they are all fiercely determined."
Hayden also spoke about the art of sledging and how he would pick certain individuals for the treatment.
"You choose your targets, really. I would never say anything to Sachin (Tendulkar), Rahul or Anil or anyone like that. I believe they have marked the test of time."
