While a humbled Australia stands aghast at the weekend’s events in Cape Town, Australian cricket would do better to acknowledge its complicity in arriving at this point.
For the sudden outburst of national hand-wringing over ‘tapegate’ belies the fact that the Australian Test cricket team has long been a source of embarrassment.
If in doubt, one need only gauge the international reaction to this incident which has been comprised of as much glee as condemnation.
This is not to downplay the gravity of the outrageously brazen act of ball tampering committed by the Australians. Rather to place it in its proper context, which is the nadir of a very poor pattern of behaviour displayed by a national sporting side over a long period of time.
After all, Australian Test cricket has been losing friends for decades.
I have previously detailed in this column, the evolution of Australia’s ‘win-at-all’ costs approach, which had its genesis in ‘Captain Grumpy’, Allan Border’s antisocial 1989 Ashes campaign.
Lauded as the means by which Australia finally escaped Test cricket purgatory and then obscured by the golden generation of Warne et al, this approach has since long been on the nose.
Indeed, the cultural cringe inducing ‘baggy green’ has become a symbol for increasingly ultra-competitive, boorish behaviour as the Australian Test cricket team has reprised the role of ‘series-spoiler’ time and again.
Yet, by continuing to focus on results rather than behavioural reform, Cricket Australia and large sections of fans alike have given their tacit approval to such antics and in so doing, have imbued the Australian Test cricket team with an air of invincibility.
One need only take Steve Smith’s feeble post-match mea culpa – which smacked of, “If I just promise not to do it one more time, will you let me go?” – to sense how tightly these players have been wrapped in a cloak of immunity.
(Photo by Robert Prezioso – CA/Cricket Australia/Getty Images)
While this is not to suggest tapegate was inevitable, the level of national astonishment that has greeted the news points to a country with its collective head firmly buried in the sand.
The hope now is that this sorry saga will act as Australian Test cricket’s desperately needed catalyst for change and that a more image-conscious national team will emerge from the rubble.
For lost amidst the current furore is a sickly game in Test cricket, which is looking increasingly forlorn in the current action-packed sporting landscape where instant gratification is king.
So much so in fact, that it is difficult to fathom Cricket Australia’s hitherto intransigence in the face of a national team that has so long been the pariah of international Test cricket.
Now we wait to see if Cricket Australia’s impending intervention is sufficient to stop Smith and co (and future generations of Australian cricketers) fulfilling their unintended roles as pall-bearers of Australian Test cricket.
Colac Butcher
Guest
I want to agree with you Paul - but you make no sense. On the one hand you’re saying there’s no cultural issue - on the other you saying you’re not surprised by the behaviour. Can you please clear this up.
Paul
Roar Guru
The "cultural cringe inducing "baggy green". What rubbish. It has been and will be every young Australian cricketers dream to pull on one of these and wear it with pride. Sure, recent events have tarnished the symbol, but it does not deserve the demeaning words used here. The only person with their heads buried in the sand is you Jump Ball, when wrote about the "level of National astonishment". Wrong, there's no astonishment here, lots of disappointment we were let down so blatantly by our National team and sadness these guys lost the plot so badly, but not astonishment at all.
Colac Butcher
Guest
How’s the view from up there on your high horse Liam? Spare us all the sanctimony, would you? I’m sick of all this outrage. Sure - it’s bad behaviour. But did they do anything that hasn’t been done by every other team? Doubtful. Professional sport. It’s not a contest of gentlemen anymore - hasn’t been for 50 years. Get over it or move on.
Colac Butcher
Guest
How’s the view from up there on your high horse Liam? Spare me the sanctimony. You think the Aussies are the only ones doing this stuff? Wake up to reality - it’s not a pre-WWII contest of gentlemen. It sounds to me like cricket (and professional sport generally) may have passed you by many moons ago.
Liam
Guest
Image-conscious, you say? No. Image conscious suggests doing it merely to repair the brand, to stop the fleeing of spectators and sponsors, to avoid going down the drain permanently. It's an appeal to self preservation, and it is as reprehensible as any suggestion I have ever heard. There is such a thing as doing the right thing for the grubbiest of reasons, and you have suggested it. No, not image-conscious. I'm not a marketer. What I want from my Australian team and captain is a commitment for the immediate future of better behaviour, not to repair their image, but because it's deserved. I want an apology, from the key participants involved, not to avoid losing me from cricket forever, but because it's the right thing to do. This is NOT about the bottom line, and if it is I will not remain a fan of them. It is beholden on them to do the right thing in the wake of this, for the right reasons. It is the only fitting consequence to doing the wrong thing for the worst of reasons.
mactheblack
Guest
Yes, the very same system that is running around like a chicken with its head chopped off, wielding the proverbial 'axe' at these errant players, should have a long hard look at themselves. Surely it is they also, structures that they have put in place that have spawned cricketers, who might think it IS about win-at-all-costs? To the point of influencing the outcome of a game in that manner? Every facet of Aussie cricket should be honing in the microscope or magnifying class on itself. It is easy to say 'so and so cheated and that's not the Aussie way' in a bid to deflect or hide your own contribution to the saga. It's time Australian Cricket as a whole owns up to its own ignorance about player behaviour, and possibly encouraging these types of behaviour, and be seen to be taking action on it. Is Pat Howard, who I see is on the plane to SA in a bid to sort out the poblem. not a former rugby personality, by the way?