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What Cricket Australia has to do in their ball tampering investigation

Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland has stood firm in an ongoing pay dispute with Australia's cricketers. (AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)
Roar Pro
25th March, 2018
9

After the Cape Town Test match involving South Africa and Australia was dramatically upturned by the Australians’ ball tampering, we are now beginning to comprehend some of the ramifications.

Punishments by the International Cricket Council have been revealed and the lack of a match ban for Cameron Bancroft has been a talking point while captain Steve Smith received a one-game ban.

The ICC may have handed down the ball tampering punishment for Bancroft based on the effect the tampering had on the outcome of the innings and Smith’s for instigating the misdeed. It seems the ICC will leave it to Cricket Australia to handle the punishment for the systematic collusion within the ranks of the team and thoroughly disgracing the legacy of country’s premier sporting team.

If Cricket Australia are serious about getting to the bottom of this matter, there needs to be understanding and full disclosure on several key points. There needs to be understanding of why Darren Lehmann reacted the way he did when Bancroft was seen on the big screens tampering with the ball. Lehmann’s reaction, the communication by two-way radio to 12th man Peter Handscomb, Handscomb’s sudden awareness that he was on camera, and his conversation to Bancroft which are all vital points in this very sorry situation.

It also needs to be definitively understood regarding who was directly involved in the discussion to commit this pre-meditated cheating, what was said and who was in earshot. It is also important to know if any player or official attempted to stop the collusion.

There needs to be a ball-by-ball review of previous games in this series and Australia’s 17-18 summer where the ball had started swinging quite significantly on occasions. This needs to be done to attempt to validate Smith’s claims this was the first time it has been attempted.

Steve Smith

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

This systematic ball tampering by the Australians has now put the current television rights negotiations and everybody’s payday at risk. It remains to be seen if this tsunami of anger and hurt by the worldwide cricketing public has an effect on the price Cricket Australia can demand for their product’s rights. CA had been pushing for a hefty increase in rights revenue with these new rounds of contracts.

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This issue Cricket Australia finds itself with is not about ball tampering per se. It is about the pre-meditated decision to cheat. Conspiring to manipulate the outcome of a game is akin to match-fixing. The spirit of cricket has been severely tarnished and past players and followers of cricket have every right to be baying for firm sentencing of all of those involved.

The Australian Cricket team’s hubris has been increasing over the past several years. Their ‘win at any cost’ attitude has evolved from constant on-field badgering of the opposition led by the ‘attack dog’ David Warner to this collective cheating.

The people who are in management positions with the power and influence over the Australian cricket team had the opportunity to curb this arrogance and stupidity and failed to do so. To have players even let discussion take place so openly about this ball tampering shows there is a serious issue within this team’s culture and guidance. Team management personnel must be changed.

The players and coaching staff involved or aware of the collusion need to be removed from the game for a lengthy period. This is not negotiable and must happen. It remains to be seen how history will show of this incident and the damage it has done to the game.

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