Sport in this country has seen many dark moments, yet as the sun shines over Melbourne, the clouds over one of our national teams could not be darker.
It’s a dark time for Australian sport and it’s a time day for Australian values. Every single Australian has been betrayed by the actions of our national team in Cape Town during the early hours of Sunday morning.
As sporting fans, we like to see our players have the mentality of hard but fair within the realms of what is acceptable on the field of play.
For all the minor incidents that have taken place in the past in what is becoming the most checkered part of history in Australian Cricket, this hard tag has been questionable and now it has all proven to be nothing but rubbish.
Steve Smith, Cameron Bancroft and the entire Australian Cricket team didn’t just go against the laws of the game or spirit of the game. They defied the very fabric of sport, and what it means to be an Australian sportsman.
What is the fabric of Australian sport? Is it the tribalism that sees us religiously following our respective football teams? Is it the patriotism that emanates from watching our athletes fight it out on the world stage at the Olympic games? Or is it the unabashed given of supporting and following our national teams?
(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Sport is part of the essence of Australian culture. The results of our football teams define our feelings for the week.
The nation stops and pauses to watch the likes of a Sally Pearson and Kyle Chalmers sprint against the world’s best for a gold medal.
It’s staying up until all hours of the night watching Lleyton Hewitt battle it out in pursuit of a Grand Slam title and rise at the wee hours of the morning to watch the Socceroos wherever they may be in the world.
The country rallies when one of our teams compete in a world cup. Australia and sport is so intertwined in our culture, which is why we are all still struggling to cop the news that we have been flooded with since Sunday morning.
An Australian team concocted a plan to cheat, and got caught out doing it. That is against the fabric of Australian sport.
Australians mostly look for honesty and integrity – not just in our sportspeople, but in human beings in general.
Look how we shun our former sporting identities for their misdemeanours if they take us for fools and think we can’t see through their spin.
Wayne Carey was shunned, Bernard Tomic was barely more than an afterthought, and Stuart O’Grady disgraced.
However, look at how we embrace the sins and foibles of Shane Warne as someone who admits to and even embraces his imperfections. He has built the Shane Warne brand around his larrikin personality.
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Matthew Johns was another prominent sporting identity who resurrected his career after admitting his sins.
The most recent controversy in Australian sport until now was the Essendon Football Club’s trials and tribulations through the drugs saga.
While we cannot be angry at the players and the bans that they received, they were still all welcomed back to the game and those who remain on the list are kicking on.
Even in that, outcasts have emerged which we as a nation have failed to welcome back.
So much of Australian culture celebrates the rituals and what is right in sport. We embrace the stories of current and past legends, pinning our hopes on the next potential saviour who will rescue our struggling team.
The religion of sport in Australian life effects almost everyone. Even our Prime Ministers recognize the power of sport to connect them to the average Aussie voter.
Just think of Julia Gillard at the footy or John Howard’s off-spinners. Actually, perhaps let’s remember Bob Hawke’s America’s Cup order instead – honest larrikin who loved to celebrate a sporting winner, or sharing a pint with at the SCG Test. This is the make-up of Australian sport and as such as to why Steve Smith’s position as captain is now untenable.
Captaining Australia is not a right, it is a privilege, and a responsibility, and one that cannot be given to anyone who was part of this.
As for the coach Darren Lehmann, even if he didn’t know about the plan – and that is hard to believe – he has fostered the sorry culture of the team. He cannot realistically stay on either – history tells us that the outcry will eventually die down, but it will take time.
Smith will lose the captaincy and serve a ban, probably a short one, but he will return to the side, and hopefully over time will earn the nation’s forgiveness. The same goes to the other players involved. The stain will never fully disappear, but it will fade.
But as for the here and now, this scandal is bigger than just cricket. It goes to the heart of Australian national identity, against the aforementioned fabric of Australian sport.
Australia’s cricket team is older than the country itself and historically, cricket has been the team sport with the greatest nationwide support.
The public response reflects this affection. Short bans and a loss of leadership positions are the appropriate response.
The written Laws of Cricket might tolerate Smith and Lehmann staying on as captain and coach, but the unwritten rules of Australia and their culture will not.
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