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In the early hours of March 29, 1984 a fleet of transport trucks rolled into the US city of Baltimore, loaded up all the equipment of then Baltimore Colts of the National Football League and under the cover darkness moved the team – quite literally – to the city of Indianapolis.
By first light they were the Indianapolis Colts. The city of Baltimore no longer had a team. Fans of the Baltimore Colts who went to bed on March 28 woke up to find out that their favourite team no longer existed.
And that’s how this feels today.
In sport everyone likes to see their team as the good guys, and every week they play against the bad guys as good attempts to overcome evil. Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it fails but we enjoy the contest for what it is.
Today the actions of the ‘leadership group’ of the Australian Cricket Team have taken away all Australians’ right to think of our team as the ‘good’ guys. The team, we all believed, that played hard – sometimes toeing the line – but ultimately fairly, left the city last night and for the moment we don’t feel like we have a team to root for any more.
The only consolation to take from this debacle is the almost universal condemnation of Steve Smith and his players by the Australian public.
Culturally Australians love sport and we love to win, but we know that there is no glory to be found in a victory achieved via the aid of cheating.
What made the situation infinitely worse was the Australian captain’s dismissal of questions about whether or not he should be removed from the team either temporarily as a player and/or as permanently as captain.
It showed that Smith simply doesn’t get it.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
This is not a +35 handicapper kicking his golf ball out from behind a tree in the Thursday morning veterans’ comp. This is the captain of the Australian cricket team.
At the highest level of the game. Devising and attempting to implement a system whereby his team would cheat in order to win. And that is not acceptable. Smith must go. And he must go now.
Cricket Australia CEO, James Sutherland has confirmed that Smith will stay in charge pending further investigations.
Swing and a miss, James. Smith must go. Now.
Sutherland – a good cricket man and a good administrator of the game – should know that in these situations it is always better to over-react and shock people at the severity of your sanctions, than to under-react and only add to the fury of the mob. Sutherland has only done the latter.
Far better for it to turn out that innocent parties were harshly dealt with than to allow guilty parties to play on and damage the team, the game and the nation’s sporting image any further.
In addition to Smith, vice-captain David Warner, Cameron Bancroft and coach Darren Lehmann must also all be removed from the team immediately. If they feel hard done by, tough. We all feel hard done by today. Deal with it.
Smith and company took a gamble when they decided to cheat. They lost.
The ‘leaders’ of the current Australian cricket team are now comprised of a captain accused of cheating and an abrasive vice-captain who was last seen trying to fight an opposition player in a stairwell.
The Australian cricket team and their ‘leadership’ is rotten to the core and the team are a national disgrace.
Whether Lehmann was involved directly in this incident or not (and it is impossible to believe that he wasn’t), the fact that it happened under his watch means he must go.
(Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
If a culture has been allowed to develop whereby players would consider blatantly cheating in order to win, then those responsible for creating that environment must also face the axe.
Some may point out that if a team is so lacking in skills that they need to resort to cheating, then the coach needs to be fired anyway. And we still can’t play spin bowling.
The selfish act of a few moronic individuals has tainted the whole of Australian sport. Sports fans have long memories. Any future victories are now condemned to be scrutinized – sometimes seriously, sometimes in jest. But they will always be scrutinized.
Australian cricket fans will no longer be able to enjoy any victory without the barbs and accusations of opposition fans and, perhaps most importantly, the inward questioning of whether what we just saw actually happened, or whether the victory was ‘assisted’ in any way.
The disregard shown to the spirit of the game by the Australian players should be mirrored in the disregard of any sympathy the public has towards the individuals involved.
You blew it, boys.