Former Australian opener, and SEN commentator, Simon Katich believes it will take for someone to be suspended for their teammates to start properly policing bad behaviour.
He has challenged match referee Jeff Crowe to take stern action and set a precedent, following the Kingsmead dressing room confrontation between Australian vice-captain David Warner and South African wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock.
“The one thing the match referee has got the control to do is if they set a precedent, players will stop behaving like that,” Katich said on SEN.
“At the moment it might take a one-Test ban for players to realise they can’t behave like that, and then it would put it to bed.
“In the end the team that gets affected by a player missing out in a Test match is going to be very disappointed with their fellow teammate, and what will happen is the teammates will start to police these issues, rather than let them happen over and over again.
“Let’s see what happens with the match referee and whether they’re going to be stern enough to stamp this behaviour out.”
Katich says if this behaviour is allowed to continue, it can be guaranteed tensions will boil over at some stage, due to the competitive nature of the teams.
“The tit for tat stuff, if that doesn’t get stamped out – you bet it’s going to happen again,” he said.
“We saw in this Test match South Africa fight back, they don’t want to get rolled, they’re on their home turf.
“We know how the Australians play. They like to play on the edge, so I think if the umpires aren’t going to step in and deal with it straight away, and nip the personal abuse in the bud, then the match referee has to sip in over them and lay a marker so this behaviour doesn’t continue.”
The Second Test begins on Friday in Port Elizabeth, and you’ll be able to listen to every ball live on 1116 SEN with Gerard Whateley and the team from 7pm AEDT.