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.
(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.
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.
Paul
Roar Guru
This article very neatly summarises the situation. The ICC has determined the ball tampering had little or no effect on the ball, hence the punishments handed out to Smith and Bancroft. These are in line with other punishments given out for similar offences, so no issues there. CA is doing the right thing and moving quickly to complete it's investigation, so your suggestion about going back through this summer to look for other episodes of ball tampering will not happen, at least not now. They only need to accurately identify who was involved in the planning and execution of the ball tampering and the punishments will probably sort themselves out. Loss of sponsorships, loss of paid leadership roles, etc will occur, but the worst will be the damage to these guys reputations now and after they've retired and it won't stop with them. What impact will it have on their children, for example? As the dust settles, these guys will realise the effect of their actions and understand this won't go away quickly. Hopefully it will deter others from doing something equally as stupid
Kurt S
Roar Pro
I agree with the punishment you have mentioned. And I certainly hope you are right with regards to TV rights. But just last week CA asked for all tenders for TV rights to be resubmitted as none of them were acceptable. Right now, those previous tender figures might be looking a bit too sharp in some people's minds.
rock
Guest
I don't think it'll affect it much at all, do you know why, the public are a fickle bunch. After Smith & co do their few matches, with most likely Smith & Warner to lose the C & VC/Lehman probably to lose his gig; most Aussies will have settled down and see it was a just punishment. I don't think this will have any impact to the sport in the medium/long term and have negligible impact on any TV right negotiations.
Kurt S
Roar Pro
Rock, this is not about ball tampering so much - as I mentioned in the article. It is the systematic deception. If this type of deception to break the law took place in a publicly run company, jail terms would be in the sights of those guilty. And I like others in this country have invested time and energy in this sporting team. And those who nurtured this attitude to a point where senior players assumed it was okay to have an apparent open discussion on how to systematically cheat need to be held responsible. It is not the crime itself. The crime was actually minor, again as I said. The ICC has handed down their punishment for that act. It is the collusion which is the serious issue here. I don' care what Faf or Athers or Satchin did... They are not accountable to Cricket Australia or the Australian sporting public. If South Africa, England, India or any other nation's national body are not overly concerned with the integrity of their team and culture, Australians can do very little other than lobby to the ICC about it. But Cricket Australia must begin to correct the attitude and integrity of the Australian team which has frankly been on a slippery slope for some time. Rock, do you have any comment on the TV rights I wrote of? What are your thoughts on how this issue will affect in income of Cricket Australia and that of all players?
rock
Guest
I agree that there is no way a junior player should have been put in this situation, that's about the one thing that is different, and the senior leaders are weak as for putting him in this situation. But you are kidding if you think that the other tampering cases were just come up at the time, they're all planned and premeditated otherwise they wouldn't be in that situation.
Andrew
Guest
Every other ball tampering incident involved a senior player doing something. This involved the leadership of the national team, including the coach telling a junior player to cheat. The coach then had the guys back on the field telling them to hide the evidence when caught. And all this planning was accomplished during a lunch break. This is different.
rock
Guest
Apologies, Atherton's 'dirt' didn;t get there by magic.
rock
Guest
Ah, another one. ALL ball tampering is premeditated & systematic che@ting, this is no different to what has happened with other occurrences in the past – it’s that the captain should have had the balls to do it himself like the ones before him Faf’s zipper wasn’t ‘accidentally’ exposed, no, he illegally exposed the zipper so he could rough the ball up against it. Atherton’s sand and gravel didn’t magically appear in his pockets for him to rough the ball up against. Our cricketer’s aren’t demigods, so I’m not sure why people try to treat them as such. And CA will hand a reasonable punishment out, which is no where near the ridiculous requests the lynch mob are asking for.
rock
Guest
Ah, another one. ALL ball tampering is premeditated & systematic cheating, this is no different to what has happened with other occurrences in the past - it's that the captain should have had the balls to do it himself like the ones before him Faf's zipper wasn't 'accidentally' exposed, no, he illegally exposed the zipper so he could rough the ball up against it. Atherton's sand and gravel didn't magically appear in his pockets for him to rough the ball up against. Our cricketer's aren't demigods, so I'm not sure why people try to treat them as such. And CA will hand a reasonable punishment out, which is no where near the ridiculous requests the lynch mob are asking for.