Beyond the boundaries of humour: Disabled cricketers’ experiences of sledging

Introduction

In June 2023, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket's (ICEC) Holding Up a Mirror to Cricket report revealed that ‘deeply rooted and widespread forms of structural and institutional racism, sexism and class-based discrimination’ (ICEC, 2023a: 8) are entrenched in English and Welsh cricket. According to the ICEC, this elitist and exclusionary culture continues to limit opportunities and diversity within the game. As part of the commission, empirical evidence of players, coaches and officials demonstrated how experiences of discrimination were often made overtly and veiled as ‘banter’ (ICEC, 2023b). Significantly, this was commonly enacted through verbal abuse, name-calling and ‘sledging’ – a particular form of gamesship ¹ in cricket, in which opposing players insult and verbally intimidate each other for the purpose of gaining a competitive advantage (Duncan, 2019).

Deeply engrained and mythologised within the social history of cricket (Smyth, 2015), due to its humorous dimensions and reciprocal nature sledging is frequently positioned as ‘subtle and humorous banter’ (Joseph and Cramer, 2011: 238). Characterised by a ‘rapid exchange of humorous lines’ (Norrick, 1993: 29), banter is commonplace across sporting contexts and participants are encouraged not to take it seriously (e.g., Hickey and Roderick, 2024). Research has demonstrated that banter can strengthen social relationships and reinforce group affiliation (e.g., Oosthuizen, 2021) and the ability to respond appropriately in ‘verbal ping-pong’ (Dynel, 2009) is important in identity construction and the acquisition of status in sporting fields (e.g., Edwards and Jones, 2018). However, like other types of humour superficially labelled as ‘playful’, banter possesses more insidious undertones and is often euphemistically used to mask discriminatory behaviours. Indeed, banter has been shown to legitimise verbal abuse and reinforce racist (Burdsey, 2011) misogynist (Abell et al., 2024), homophobic (Evans, 2023; Magrath et al., 2015) and ableist (Powis, 2020) discourses in elite and amateur non-disabled sporting cultures and disability sport (Munro-Cook and Fullagar, 2025). In grassroots cricket, for example, Lawless and Magrath (2023) explore the fine lines between ‘inclusionary’ banter in fostering close team relationships and ‘exclusionary’ banter which transgresses levels of acceptability becoming hurtful. While banter acts as a disciplinary practice in sport urging ‘compliance with norms’ (Munro-Cook and Fullagar, 2025: 10), it should however be taken seriously in exposing multifarious forms of discrimination. It is somewhat surprising then that despite the prevalence of banter in sporting cultures and its role in constructing identity, marginalising others and euphemistically legitimising discriminatory behaviour, it remains chronically under-researched.

Similar to trash talk in sport (Kassing and Sanderson, 2010), sledging can be differentiated from banter as one of its central functions is the disruption of psychological, emotional, and embodied states diverting attention and resulting in errors (e.g., Davis et al., 2018; Duncan, 2019). Accordingly, the presence of sledging appears dependent on a number of individual, situational and relational factors including the perceived ability of the opponent, their role in the team, the period of the innings, the state of the game, how many runs the batter has scored, the level of competition and the history and relationships between opponents (Davis, 2019; Davis et al., 2018; Joseph and Cramer, 2011). While this body of research has explored the rationales, strategies and impact of sledging there remains scant qualitative analysis of how such practices are experienced by disabled cricketers (Powis, 2020). Likewise, romanticised stories of sledging in cricketing folklore (e.g., Smyth, 2015; Wagg, 2019) predominantly feature white, male, heterosexual and non-disabled players without adequately considering those who do not fit this corporeal norm. Even in the valuable research contained in the ‘It's Not Banter’ report (ICEC, 2023a), the lived experiences of disabled people remained peripheral with disability lumped alongside other distinguishing identities (LGBTQ+ and Jewish people). Consequently, very little is known about disabled cricketers experiences of sledging. This seems amiss given that it may further contribute to the systemic exclusion experienced by disabled people in non-disabled sport (Maher et al., 2023) and the environmental, material and social barriers preventing disabled people engaging in disability sport (Fitzgerald, 2018; Kiuppis, 2018).

Furthermore, although the significance of humour has been established within disability cultures as being central in the reproduction of dominant social hierarchies and in the subjugation of disabled bodies (e.g., Garland-Thomson, 1997), limited empirical attention has been paid to the role of alternative forms of humour in disabled sporting cultures or to disabled athletes’ uses of humour. Recently, Alexander-Urquhart et al. (2024) explored the use of humour among head coaches of Paralympic teams demonstrating how it may be both facilitative and debilitative as a coaching strategy. Alternatively, within visually impaired cricket, Powis (2020) revealed the role of banter as a form of humour in reinforcing ableism within an impairment-specific sporting sub-culture. In doing so, he found that impairment-based banter served as a unifying social act which simultaneously reinforced divisions between players – as evidenced by the practice of ‘B1 bashing’, or the deliberate targeting of those players with the least amount of usable sight. Banter was therefore used as a hegemonic device in sustaining ableist social hierarchies. Although an important feature in disability cultures then, the impact of humour and banter on disabled athletes and the role it plays in forging connections between social groups or reinforcing ableist discourses is also largely unknown and warrants further exploration.

Research aims

The aims of our research are twofold. Firstly, we aim to explore sledging as experienced by disabled cricketers and the subjective meanings this holds for participants in non-disabled, impairment-specific (i.e., Physical Disability (PD); Learning Disability (LD); d/Deaf ² ) and pan-disability cricket. The latter has recently been introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to include all three impairment groups in the formulation of the Disability Premier League (DPL) (see Powis et al., 2025). Secondly, given the centrality of humour in both sport and disability cultures, we explore how sledging offers a unique lens to explore these intersections and the relational dynamics which contribute to the social ordering of disabled sporting bodies. In doing so, we address if sledging practices are inclusive and enhance belonging, or if they go ‘beyond the boundaries’ of humour representing a shift into explicit discrimination and abuse as enactments of disablism and becoming another exclusionary practice experienced by disabled people in sport.

Conceptual framework

In order to develop our understanding of sledging and disability, we act as conceptual bricoleurs as described by Denzin and Lincoln (2018). Here, we approach the phenomena through multiple theoretical approaches and conceptual ideas in order to piece together a diverse multifaceted depiction of disabled cricketers experiences. As Powis et al. (2025) indicates, when acting as researchers-as-bricoleur theorists, one specific theory or concept is not prescribed, rather research is characterised by theoretical eclecticism in generating interpretations. Accordingly, at certain points in our analysis, we use diverse concepts from the fields of sociology, disability studies and novelly, from approaches located within broader discussions of humour and disabling/disability humour.

Defined as forms of communication which generate laughter, amusement and mirth (Critchley, 2011) humour strengthens human bonds, provides a sense of identity and belonging, helps resolve conflict and enables coping (e.g., Aggerholm and Ronglan, 2012; Martin and Ford, 2018). Conversely, humour is used to ridicule, belittle, trivialise, disempower, subordinate, derogate, humiliate and ‘test’ others knowledge and the appropriateness of their reactions to potentially sensitive social issues (e.g., Adams, 2020; Hylton, 2018). Considering this contested nature, it is unsurprising that the analysis of disability and humour has revealed two main competing ‘storylines’ (Clark, 2022). Historically, disabled people have been denigrated, demoralised and demeaned as the object of humour (Rosqvist, 2012) and ridiculed by non-disabled people or ‘normates’ (Garland-Thomson, 1997: 8). This is referred to as ‘disabling humour’ which works through positioning impairment under the medical model of disability as something that is tragic, non-normative, unruly and unwanted. Within this approach, disability is medicalised and humour enacted as ‘thinly disguised hostility and hatred’ (Lisicki, 1992: 66) towards disabled people and fear of becoming disabled. Alternatively, humour that ‘centres disability or is offered by disabled persons’ (Reid et al., 2006: 631) is known as ‘disability humour’. Through challenging existing sociocultural structures and ableist ideologies and by offering contradictory narratives to disability as tragic, disability humour can be agentic, liberatory, empowering and contribute to a sense of group solidarity, all of which are key elements of the social model (Albrecht, 1999).

Set against this backdrop, Bingham and Green (2016) provide a useful conceptual framework for understanding the dynamics of disabling/disability humour outlined above which we draw on alongside other approaches. They link empirical findings from interviews with disability comedians with four theories of what makes something funny (superiority; relief; inferiority; and incongruity) and the common ‘models’ through which disability has been conceptualised. Superiority humour works by making downward comparison, laughing at the inferiority and misfortune of others with jokes made at the expense of disabled people. Disability is individualised and understood through the medical model by being demeaned (i.e., impairment is tragic, non-normative and unruly) reinforcing the power and dominance of the non-disabled majority. Relief humour works as a release mechanism to help people cope with the tragedy of disability and provide a sense of hope. Here the medical model is reproduced through emphasis on self-pity and overcoming. Relief humour however is used by disabled people in navigating interactions in the disabling world, easing anxieties, fears and awkwardness over impairment (see Stebbins, 1996), counteracting notions of pity and tragedy and forging positive relationships. Humour is therefore reformatory, used as relief from frustrations of living in ableist world, not as relief form the tragedy of impairment in ways which enable agency and challenge feelings of helplessness and being Othered. Alternatively, inferiority humour works by acting as a relational tool in appealing to the non-disabled majority to empathise with differences in being human, sharing in sense of fragility, vulnerability and emotion. Laughing is not directed at another but is undertaken together about the ‘collective human experience’ (Bingham and Green, 2016: 292) and imperfections of the human condition reshaping negative understandings of disability (Berger, 2013). Finally, incongruity humour destabilises the accepted order of things in society (e.g., the expectations, norms, rules, responses and values) to evoke laughter and amusement. Through holding up a mirror to non-disabled experience, meaning is inverted through evocation of the unexpected and questioning the ‘absurdity’ (Bingham and Green, 2016: 294) of the public encounters routinely endured by disabled people. Drawing on this and others work (e.g., Goffman), we were able to produce complex, multiple and overlapping interpretations of disabled cricketers experiences located within intersections of disability, humour and sport.

Methodology

Findings and discussion

Five themes were crafted from our abductive analysis, sledging: as the ‘norm’; as ‘inclusive humour’; as ‘gamesship’; as ‘disablism’; and as ‘subversion’. Participants did not experience these sledges in a fixed or sequential fashion, rather they were experienced dynamically and interchangeably in the specific context (e.g., format), time (e.g., state of the game) and space (e.g., on/off field) in which they occurred. With this in mind, we now discuss each theme.

Reflections

This is first paper to explore sledging as experienced by disabled cricketers. Theoretically, we have blended sociological theory, concepts from disability studies and discussions of humour and disabling/disability humour laying a novel conceptual grounding for the undertaking of future work into disability sport, banter and gamesship. Empirically, through the voices of players themselves, we have revealed that like banter, the ubiquity of sledging provides ‘an interlinking thread of group life’ (Edwards and Jones, 2024: 413) normalised through the social processes inherent in cricket participation. In each of the formats in they play, participants were not deemed ‘off limits’ from sledging as such prohibition reproduces medical understandings of disability. Within the boundaries of inclusive humour, ritualised patterns of light-hearted and good-natured sledging were central to social interaction and group affiliation fostering senses of togetherness and belonging. As players became socialised into accepted ways of being in the teams that they are part of then, the ability to appropriately administer and receive sledges acted as important cultural codes of inclusion and sharpened communicative tools to manage microaggressions and disablist interactions away from the cricket field in disabling society. Sledging as gamesship was however more harmful and exclusionary. Here, insider knowledge of impairment was used to enact specific forms of sledging which were effective in disrupting concentration and creating a competitive advantage. LD players, whose impairment impacted on their capability for refocusing and emotional regulation in fast-paced sporting contexts, were left particularly vulnerable.

More worrisome still was the widespread presence of sledging that weaponised disability as overt, explicit and violent enactments of disablism. Intensified when disabled cricketers challenge acceptable limits of performance threatening non-disabled players perceptions of normativity, sledging as disablism is another example of a hegemonic device, preserving non-disabled privilege and Othering and excluding disabled athletes. More sinister in their intentions, such practices offer further evidence for the darkening of the art of sledging, seemingly providing acceptance for disablism under the justification of cricketing culture and banter. Echoing findings in broader sporting cultures where impairment and physical difference is deemed appropriate to target as humour (e.g., De Haan et al., 2015) sledging as disablism transcends amusement and gentile ‘gamesship’ and is interpreted as offensive, hurtful, humiliating and challenge notions of fair play and the ‘spirit of cricket’ ⁵ (e.g., Brearley, 2020; Rae, 2012).

Significantly, our findings show how the introduction of pan-disability cricket has muddied the waters of acceptability of sledging across impairment groups, leaving players unsure about boundaries of sledging and questioning each other's inclusion as they transition between formats and non-disabled/disabled sport (Maher et al., 2023). d/Deaf players for example were at risk of labelled as ‘fake disabled’ or being excluded from sledging and banter entirely as a result of their impairment. Our focus on sledging then also provided a novel critical lens through which to explore the relational dynamics affecting the social ordering of disabled bodies in sport. Such hierarchical ordering of impairment offers further evidence for pecking orders in the ranking of disabled sporting bodies which become more apparent in pan-disability competition (Powis et al., 2025). Specifically, sledging practices discriminate more against d/Deaf and to greater extent against LD players. This extends to attempts of resistance, where more experienced PD and d/Deaf disabled cricketers were able to subvert ableist assumptions of ability through responding to sledging with humour or enacting ‘purposeful slips’ in order to reclaim power and subjectivity – yet LD players felt unable to access such strategies of subversion. Such findings resonate with previous research that demonstrates that both non-disabled and disabled people themselves express preference for physical and sensory impairment and harbour more prejudice towards those with learning, developmental and mental impairments (e.g., Harpur, 2019).

Our study provides important empirical evidence to further distinguish how disablism is manifested in cricket and should be considered when addressing strategies to address discrimination and exclusionary practices in the game. Given the impact that sledging has on players and the prevalence of adverse mental wellbeing experienced by cricketers (Ogden et al., 2022; Schuring et al., 2017), findings should also contribute to safeguarding policy to help protect the health and welfare of disabled cricketers. This should include developing coping mechanisms for managing sledging and educating stakeholders (e.g., coaches, umpires and administrators) on the unique forms of discrimination experienced by disabled cricketers, including those euphemistically masked as ‘banter’. Guidance on what is determined as acceptable (within the boundary) and what is not acceptable (beyond the boundary) should therefore be generated in conjunction with disabled players and made available through official ECB communication channels. Such a resource should form part of the curriculum on ECB coaching and officiating pathways and be mandatory for completion criteria for those involved in formal ECB roles in disability cricket. At a ground level, it would also assist players, managers and umpires manage situations when sledging arises, helping safeguard against disablism as it occurs.

In closing, we recognise that our study has limitations. Our sample was made of up mainly white, elite disabled cricketers in England who identified as male. In depth analysis of how multiple differentiating identities (e.g., sexed, gendered, raced, classed, aged and ethnic) impact experiences of sledging alongside disability is required. Given the racism, sexism and classed-based discrimination raised in the ICEC report (2023a), female and non-white disabled cricketers in particular need their voices heard. Methodologically, our study required participants to recall previous experiences of sledging through interviews, which are not only politically and contextually bound but are subject to various social dynamics in the process of remembering and telling (Smith and Sparkes, 2016). Ethnographic approaches which observe sledging in naturalistic terrains as it occurs would therefore be useful, particularly when exploring sledging among disabled players who face barriers in communicating their experiences in normative ways. Away from cricket, the impact of banter, humour and trash talk in disability sport is virtually absent and requires further attention. Impairment should be acknowledged as central in disability experience and in the hierarchical ordering of disabled sporting bodies, rather than be reduced to an invisible presence.