After being repeatedly frustrated in his eff orts to get Grace out by an umpire who refused to dismiss him, Kortright finally knocked away two of the great man's stumps. As WG made his reluctant way to the pavilion, the Essex man called out to him: "Surely you're not going, Doctor? There's still one stump standing."

The row on Twitter between British runners Mo Farah and Andy Vernon has caught the media's imagination ©Twitter

Nor does the Farah-Vernon aggro get remotely into the league of some of the verbal assaults ritually launched by boxers in ever-diminishing parody of the withering pre-bout goadings of one Muhammad Ali.

Before his first heavyweight title fight with Sonny Liston, who was known as the Big Bear, Ali took to calling the champion Big Ugly Bear.  "After the fight," Ali added, "I'm going to go build myself a pretty home and use him as a bearskin rug. Liston even smells like a bear."

Back in the world of track and field, two things are indisputable. Farah, as one of Britain's prized possessions, has without doubt been artfully showcased on occasions. One thinks immediately of his run at last year's IAAF Diamond League meeting in Birmingham where he finished more than 15 seconds clear of his nearest rival in setting a European two miles record of 8min 7.85sec.


But Farah has earned that right by taking on anyone the world can throw at him and beating them over 5000 and 10,000m, year on year. The MoShow, as Vernon expresses it, has its own legitimacy.

And now, of course, any meeting between the two will have an added element of interest for the media.

Whenever there is a bit of needle between two British runners, it brings to mind for many followers of the sport the fabled rivalry of Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett - although the parallel here is not strong, given that Farah and Vernon have operated on different levels of achievement in recent years; Vernon, for example, was sixth in last year's Birmingham two miles race, almost 20 seconds behind the winner.

But the Coe/Ovett rivalry, soon to be celebrated in a feature film, is almost emblematic. Yes, the two men did avoid each other. Yes, it's true that they were neither of them each other's cup of tea. And on occasions, there was some overt niggling between them.

The other day, oddly enough, I was reading Ovett's 1984 book (published by Willow Books, written with the late, great John Rodda of The Guardian, and entitled, reasonably enough Ovett - An Autobiography) and came across this passage at the end of the chapter covering the momentous events of the 1980 Moscow Games, where Ovett won the 800m Coe was favourite for, and Coe responded by winning the 1500m most had foreseen Ovett winning.

Sebastian Coe has to settle for silver, behind British rival Steve Ovett, after the Moscow 1980 Olympic 800m final. After the 1500m final the roles were reversed, with Ovett taking bronze rather than silver, sparking a conversation to which Ovett took exception ©AFP/Getty Images

Ovett recalls a conversation after the second race when both men were waiting to give a urine sample in the dope-testing room:

"I passed him a drink and he said, 'So you got silver then?' 'No, I got bronze,' I replied. 'Oh good.'

"Those two words told me more about the man than the race did. I know they had a double meaning but I have the memory of the way he said it."

A good line to be sure. Did Coe mean to be mean? Or was it just the dazed response of a man who had just resurrected his reputation in the space of just over 3:38? I'll ask him next time I see him...

Other instances of track and field flare-ups have been less equivocal.

Former world and Olympic 100m champion Maurice Greene, always a combative figure on the track, once shouted across to his rival Tim Montgomery as he beat him at the US Championships: "This is for real!"

Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva - world pole vault champion on home soil in 2013 and, when pushed, the Queen of Mean ©Getty Images

And world pole vault record holder Yelena Isinbayeva has always had a sharp line in put downs. She once described her fractious relationship with fellow Russian rival Svetlana Feofanova as "Hi-and-goodbye".

On occasions, she has been less euphemistic. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Isinbayeva won gold with a world record of 5.05m ahead of US vaulter Jennifer Stuczynski, who cleared 4.80 and would win Olympic gold four years later under her married name of Jennifer Suhr.

Afterwards Isinbayeva's take on the American was as follows: "She has never beaten me. She is talking too much. So I didn't say anything. I just wanted to prove who is the best.

"I am not deaf. I can read interviews and hear what is being talked about. It made me really angry because I said 'How is it possible to speak like this about me?'

"When I found out, it wasn't nice first of all because she must respect me and know her place. Now she knows."

Ouch.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.