Well Done, Cricket Australia
- Mar 29, 2018
- 3 min read
For Australian cricket fans, the past week has been full of statements we never thought we’d make.
Steve Smith is a cheat.
I am disgraced to be an Australian supporter.
Trevor Chappell’s underarm may not be our darkest day.
Boycotting this side is a reasonable response to any sanctions I deem insufficient.
So, finally, we have a declaration that we are proud to make.
Well done, Cricket Australia, for handling this crisis decisively and prioritising integrity over competition.
The 12-month bans from international and domestic cricket handed down to former captain Steve Smith and former vice-captain David Warner for conspiring to alter the condition of the ball with sandpaper in the Third Test against South Africa are the largest in Cricket Australia’s history for on-field charges (equalling Shane Warne’s year-long suspension for taking a banned diuretic in 2003). Although the internal investigation found that 25-year old opener Cameron Bancroft wasn’t part of the conspiracy and merely acted on the orders of his vice-captain, the most inexperienced player of the side has not been spared for his compromise of principles and has received a nine-month ban.
To lose not only a captain but the batsman now regarded as being one of Australia’s best behind Sir Donald Bradman will be a blow to the national side on both sides of the fence. Under Smith’s captaincy, Australia transitioned from the internal dilemmas of the Clarke era to remodel itself as a team. Australia has won Test series in New Zealand and the Caribbean, pushed the Indians all the way overseas, whitewashed Pakistan and reclaimed the Ashes 4-0. All the while, Smith’s white-hot form has seen him hit nearly 8,000 international runs at an average of 60 with 26 centuries.
As for Warner? Well, the chickens have come home to roost for an explosively talented batsman and a man with a dark, aggressive side that he has long struggled or refused to control. When Warner made his international debut in 2009, he was anticipated to be – maybe even condescendingly dismissed as – a Twenty20 specialist. Yet he rose to the position of vice-captain and has become one of the best batsmen in the world. Along the way, he has been sanctioned for assaulting England’s Joe Root in a bar in 2013 and repeatedly had his on-field aggression called out not just by media but by players; New Zealand’s Martin Crowe described him as “the most juvenile cricketer I have seen on a cricket field”.
Although rumours of Warner’s unpopularity within the side are being as confirmed as quickly as they are made, the fact remains that he and Smith have been in their positions since Clarke’s retirement in 2015. A long-held team equilibrium has been broken.
Cricket Australia’s courage is not just badly compromising the team’s performances in the name of principle. It’s doing so knowing that other countries probably won’t follow suit in the same scenario.
Bancroft is far from the first player to be caught manipulating the condition of the ball in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage. Since 1994, six cases of ball tampering have been brought before the ICC with fines issued to England’s Mike Atherton and South Africa’s Faf du Plessis (twice) and Vernon Philander while Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi received a two match T20 ban in 2010. Most spectacular was Pakistan forfeiting The Oval Test against England in protest of umpire Darrell Hair’s accusations of tampering in 2006.
See a trend? None of the players were banned by their national governing body as in the case of Smith, Warner and Bancroft. Sandpaper-gate is unlikely to set a standard that all countries will follow because, well, they don’t have to.
In the most testing of crises, Cricket Australia’s principles and integrity have stood firm. From the ashes of a disillusioning affair, the soul of our cricketing nation is battered but untarnished.
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