How is calling an opponent fat and unfit not personal? How is saying something about an opponent’s wife personal considering she’s a different person?

What is this line the Australians speak of that thou shalt not cross? Who decides where it is? Does it move? Who moves it? How?

Who died and made the Aussies the uber arbiters of cricket ethics? How dare they claim this position for themselves?

Whatever Warner is saying, he’s incensed. And he’s incensed at De Kock — who looks all the while as nonplussed as he generally does.

That doesn’t seem to be a lot to go on in legal terms, but on Tuesday Warner was fined 75 per cent of his match fee and docked three demerit points for his level two offence.

He didn’t bother defending himself, which meant he wasn’t summoned to a hearing and didn’t need to divulge to match referee Jeff Crowe what he had said to De Kock.

How can it be right that Crowe both laid the charge and decided De Kock’s fate? That makes him both prosecutor and judge.

Similarly, how can it be right that Warner is allowed to avoid a fair fight by running away from a hearing?

Perhaps the answers to all these questions is that the personal is political.