What’s the difference between South African, Indian, English and Australian cricket?
When a South African player, Faf du Plessis, gets nicked for ball tampering (twice) he is made captain. When Sachin Tendulkar does it he remains a demigod. England’s Mike Atherton became a few thousand quid poorer. In Australia we assemble an ugly mob who bay for the blood of our cricketers and get to work with the four-by-two and a packet of roofing nails.
These distinctions offer an unusual look at national identity. Put succinctly, Australians lost their minds and their judgment over a piece of tape, some pitch dirt and a cricket ball.
I’m not sure I would refer to what happened at Cape Town between 2.00pm and 2.42pm local time as cheating. It’s an unhelpful term given approximately 99 per cent of Australians don’t understand the vagaries of reverse swing and how a cricket ball tampered with or not may suddenly start swinging around corners or stubbornly refuse to shift one millimetre off its trajectory.
It was not cheating by any legal definition. Broadly speaking, common law defines cheating as a contrived act set to deny people of proprietary rights. In Australia, where criminal law refers to cheating, it usually falls into the category of obtaining financial benefit by an act of deception. In the UK, where laws for cheating on the sporting field were brought in recently and used in the prosecution of Pakistan cricketers, Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif, Smith and Co.’s actions would not, by definition, rouse the interest of the plod.
When madness abounds, it is sensible to return to some measure of sanity by using the terms the rules stipulate. It was a code violation grade two (of four with four being the most serious).
Full column here.
Speaking of “tampering”, Mr Insider, we see Ecuador’s Government has cut off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s internet access at the nation’s London embassy after his recent activity on social media decrying the arrest of a Catalonian separatist leader. Strewth not much left to do now in his Bedsit methinks! I think its come on out with your hands up fellow.
https://tinyurl.com/yanofalg
Aw.
I think that the next step in this fiasco is to ban pockets on the field.
Maybe ban trousers too.
Ban underpants
I think if they did that TV they wouldnt be as much on the ball as they have been.
In that case youd have to make sure they arent wearing undies either TV. Then there would only be one place to hide the evidence, no lets not go there.
We need tamper-proof balls.
Sad finish for Smith and Bancroft. I’m not sure how I feel about Warner. He has been a controversial member of the team.
It’s hard to even comprehend the devastation those two players are experiencing. I’m not talking about the financial hit.
The punishment was harsh. Even though Lehman says he was not involved, he and perhaps CA, must surely be considered as somewhat responsible for this culture within the team. It started with some inappropriate sledging and went downhill from there.
Three careers are in tatters.
One hopes that this will generate a fresh approach to the game. It’s not about winning at all costs – and huge amounts of money.
Get back to the basics.
“It started with some inappropriate sledging and went downhill from there.”
Boa, may I say sledges generally go downhill whether they’re inappropriate or not.😉
Good one, Carl! But aren’t they sleds? 😊
That obvious devastation should be closely monitored I think so I hope
CA keeps that in mind. It’s just a game in the end but the vilification may prove to be too much to bear for those guys. Just saying.
Now we find out that it’s sandpaper that was used, not tape with dirt as was previously claimed.
This is is turning into a conspiracy.
Curioser and curioser.
I think that James Sutherland has done the right thing, generally, in taking decisive action, even though it seems harsh now. I hope that it’s the much-needed catalyst for other players/nations to clean up their act.
The only person who’s burnished their credentials over this affair is Darren Lehmann, who’s finally twigged that Australia’s uncompromising attitude to winning isn’t winning fans.
Sandpaper is sticky tape with dirt.
In hindsight CA should have suspended Warner for a couple of games after his physical altercation in the sheds. That was pretty ugly to see and sent out a wrong message to young cricket fans.
You’re right, Milt.
In hindsight its always easier.
The fact that Warner needed his wife and children with him to keep him calm didn’t sound good.
He should have been sent home after the stairwell incident.
After that he may have been hell bent on revenge to beat the South Africans.
He is obviously a dominant person and rough diamond.
Sad that the careers of two fine cricketers were taken out.
Smith was a fool but Bancroft is the real tragedy imo.
I’ve made all my best decisions in hindsight, Boa. But i’m not the CEO [?] of oz cricket. I don’t know how much power that the Sutherland chap has. Whether his focus is on administration and big picture stuff or whether he can hire and fire coaches/captains. Regardless, perhaps he should be given a year off as well – he’s hardly impressed this week.
Hey Jack didn’t think my double entendres was too bad for publication. Would have got a chuckle I thought!
Cheers,
Razor
Under the circumstances, no.
Considering some in the media have wheeled out the likes of Stuart Broad and Harbhajan Singh to comment on this – and Michael Vaughan – I’m half-surprised some haven’t gone for the likes of Wasim and Waqar or Imran Khan, or even Saleem Malik to pass comment.
Or Douglas Jardine
Great to see you back Rhys!
l did think that Cricket Australia might have gotten it even more wrong, but I stand by my earlier prediction that they will look very foolish in a year.
let’s list some of the previous ball-tampering offenders shall we,
Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Faf du Plessis, twice, Michael Atherton, Shahid Afridi, all of whom have captained their country.
Faf, far from being sacked and suspended, was ELEVATED to the captaincy a few months after his second, lets repeat that, second guilty finding.
think about that for a minute.
He will captain the side against Aus next Test, without any embarrassment.
Very, very clever TO…..god this whole issue needs humour
I can’t find anything funny about it
Penny & Boa,
I tried one around Warner having a sweet tooth but Jack thought best not to publish. Not whinging mind you just having a bit of fun. Let’s see if you can guess where I was heading……..
If only we could get the lion on the line then we might know where it is
I read an article before the SA tests started analyzing Warner’s work load over the last couple of years and speculated when he would crack.
He went straight from the 20/20 in NZ to SA and must have been jet lagged to hell.
And he did crack with that episode in the tunnel for which he probably felt that he was unjustifiably treated given that the crack was about his family.
The rest is history.
It probably cost him in excess of $2 million – that’s one hell of a fine.
We fast tracked Fawad Ahmed so that he could play cricket for us.
I wonder which country wants to pick Davy up given that a few commentators have said that he will never play for Australia again.
They all have a heavy workload, we used to have a cricket season but now it’s all year round.
England are looking wrecked in NZ, one month off before they are into two tests against Pakistan in May and then five tests against India, then its onto Sri Lanka.
Cost hom more than
Sorry, hit enter by mistake.
Cost him more than $2 mill.
Hope he’s got enough on hand to fund the $5million house he’s building on the site he paid $4million for and demolished.
There’s too much money in the game