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Sledging in Ottoman Cricket Sledging was well established by the time of Bayezid I (the Thunderbolt). In an exchange with the great Tartar skipper,Timour the Lame, as reported by Edward Gibbon in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol VIII, Timour remarked to Bayezid "Thou art no more than a pismire; why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants? Alas! They will trample thee under their feet." Bayezid's furious response was a tirade of abuse culminating in the infamous insult. "If I fly from your arms, may my wives be thrice divorced from my bed: but if thou hast not courage to meet me in the field, mayest thou again receive thy wives after they have thrice endured the embraces of a stranger." Hard words indeed, even for those times. Even so, Timour's petty outburst where he had 4000 of the Ottoman XI followers buried alive was seen as an over reaction, but it did at least for a time rekindle the mutual respect of the two great players. Two years later the memorable Angora Test Match immortalised the glory of Timour and the shame of Bayezid, who once again was let down by the collapse of the middle order and with his own once fearsome bowling neutered by an unfortunate recurrence of gout in his hands and feet. There is some debate as to whether Bayezid final demise was the result of his beating his brains out on the bars of the iron cage kindly provided for him by Timour after the match, or whether he succumbed to the more traditional Sultans' fate of apoplexy. Either way it was the end of the road for a great fast bowler, if sometimes wildly unpredictable captain. Although lame of hand and foot, Timour remained invincible at the crease and the Tartars unbeatable, until the Great Umpire finally raised his boney index figure at the end of a superlative fifty year innings. The Tartars were never again to be a force in World cricket, and it took two generations and two dedicated Sultans before the Ottomans once again achieved pre-eminence. Such can be the ravages when sledging becomes personal.
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