Can Cricket Australia ever fully recover from the cheating scandal?

How possible can the Stoke's incident be worse for cricket.Terrible as it was,it occurred off the pitch and one individual involved.The Australian captain,vice captain and opening batsman conspired to cheat with the possible acquiescence of the coach.Then lied to the umpires and lied again in the press conference.Then proceeded to cry like babies in the ensuing press conferences. I somehow think this was a lot worse for Cricket.

Well said Jay, this has been my take all along. CA brought in a desperate move to save face to a screaming media and sponsors and keep their own well-paid sinecures. Every player in Australian cricket must be scratching his/her head saying "hang on, for all the other ball tampering episodes the ICC have slapped a (joke of) 1 match ban but CA have put a new definition AND punishment of "bringing the game into ill repute" to save their own butts". Its not like CA don't have form to throw players under the bus so they can kneel before the almighty dollar, ask Andrew Symonds. Apart from killing off D.Warner's career and costing both Warner and S.Smith many million of dollars, I feel the major fallout will be the animosity now drawn between the players and the administrators which will take years to calm down. Remember the head stinks first. I can see our test cricket going the way of our Super Rugby sides, we had all better get used to losing which will have a monetary effect on CA and its finances. Like why would a player go that extra mile for the scabs at CA when battling Dehli belly with Indian spinners sending their bombs down on their pitches or facing S.Broad at Headingley on an overcast morning?

Well...I will reply with a metaphor Imagine you go over the speed limit. You are caught by the police since you were recorded on camera. The law says that the punishment for speeding is a $100 fine. The police however, want to make an example of you and decide to send you to jail for 10 years. The police make it clear that the 10 year punishment is not for speeding but for "attempted vehicular assault" (endangering the lives of other people on the road) . There is no prior legal precedent for the police charging people with attempted vehicular assault in speeding cases. There was no law or amendment or government notification that informed citizens that henceforth speeding would be viewed seriously and violators would be charged with attempted vehicular assault. Do you think it would be fair ? It is very possible that a 1-year ban is a fair punishment for premeditated ball tampering - however, at present there is no rule that says that this a grave offence which will be punishable with a 1-year ban. Additionally, all previous cases of ball tampering (premeditated or otherwise) have been punished with only a slap on the wrist. The rule regarding "bringing disrepute to the game" has so far been applied only to dope cheats and match fixers. In this context, how are players supposed to know that this is to be viewed as a serious offence? Any civilized society works on the basis of rules which are framed in advance - the people are supposed to be fully aware of the actions they must not do and the consequences of those actions. To formulate new rules on the fly and apply them retrospectively is discriminatory and unfair to say the least. Usually the process goes thus - rules are framed, widely publicized and people informed, violators punished. In this case, the process was thus - violators punished, rules being drafted. The process was upside down to say the least. The very fact that we are debating whether the punishment was harsh or fair is testament to the fact that there was no objective metric for determining the severity of the offence or the quantum of punishment. How was a player playing before this controversy supposed to know how serious of an offence it apparently was?

Don't know if the ban is 'harsh' or 'mild' but it is definitely unprecedented. A new benchmark set by Cricket Australia.

I doubt the Australian cricket team has exemplified the gentleman's game for quite some time. Is this not the focus of the review into the team culture? We have been arrogant, boorish and badly behaved and have been passing judgement on other teams sitting on our high horse. I think that is part of the reason the social media response was so loud. Everyone and their neighbor across the cricket playing world saw it as an opportunity to get their kick in. The British were probably "avenging" Broad's treatment, the Indians to the DRS incident, the South Africans to the treatment of Faf and Quinton. Is it not surprising that we apparently have personal rivalries with all the top 5 teams? Gentlemen was surely not the word other teams were using to describe us. What you are right about is that we had not been caught cheating before. However, you are doing other teams a disservice by describing them as not being able to keep themselves out of trouble. South African and Indian cricket were clean before the match fixing scandal and both recovered and arguably are better sides than they ever were. I feel certain Australian cricket will recover. I will go far as to say that I think the players involved will recover too. People and organizations are not the sum of their mistakes. I agree with you, though, that it is unlikely either Australian cricket or the players involved will be the same as they were before the scandal. However, if they emerge the same, it would defeat the entire point of this exercise of furore, sanctions, apologies etc. Hopefully, they will emerge better, stronger and nicer.

I feel the issue is blown out of all proportion. To put it briefly, 2 players decided to sandpaper a cricket ball , a third knew something was up but could not be bothered to intervene. It is hardly the scandal of the century. South African and Indian cricket recovered from match-fixing scandals (I think a FAR more serious problem). Pakistani cricket has recovered from so many scandals it is hard to list them out. A British cricketer is under criminal proceedings for assault and neither the ECB nor the British public seem to be very concerned. In India, a cricketer was recently offered an international contract while under criminal proceedings for domestic assault - again neither the BCCI nor the Indian public seem to be bothered. It is true that these players crossed a line. That is not to say that other teams and other players in international cricket are not very close to the line anyway. The entire issue was made into something MUCH larger than what it actually is by busybody politicians, pious ex-players and hysterical social media response (it would be interesting to find out how many of the hysterical social media commenters are actually Australian) Yes, Australia will not be allowed to indulge in sanctimonious judgement over other teams in the near future. Yes, the Australian cricketers will need to develop a tough skin over the next few years to take sledging from other teams they dished it out to in the past. Its not the end of the world. As Paul mentions, if we demonstrate our intent in the field with fair and good cricket, we will be fine.

Is Haddin a candidate for head coach.....holy crap.

Paul, Although I don't agree with all you say about what happened 20 years ago, I must give you accolades for your efforts and endeavours. Cheers

Just to clarify things, I'm not related to the author but there are large elements of truth in his statement about the damage Super League did and still does. There have been literally hundreds of articles moaning about the way the NRL is or is not managing the expansion of the game and much of this inactivity can be traced back to the Super League saga and the after effects. The Clubs were strong before the split but have become even more so in terms of having a huge say in what will happen with the game. They are dictating to the NRL about expansion and as it stands, none want to move in NSW. Likewise with the rules. Super League had things like unlimited interchange and super fast play the balls so when the parties merged again, the NRL tried to come up with a formula that would promote the most attractive football and once again, it was the Clubs who had a major say in that. There needs to be a balance between the administrators and the Clubs, which has been on a bias towards the Clubs since Super League which is very unhealthy for the game as a whole. Yes a significant amount of money is generated by the Clubs, but they want the lions share, so the amount trickling down to juniors and out bush, is way below what;s needed to keep the game flourishing. All of these things are results of the Super League incident. Maybe they might have occurred anyway, but Super League came along and sped things up.

We'll be labeled as cheats for as long as it takes for us to win a lot of games in a row without cheating or doing something else that could bring the team into disrepute. Its very easy to kick the side when it's down, but opposition sides will hopefully be too busy trying to work out how to beat us to worry about calling us names. It all starts in the ODI series in England. You can be sure the crowds over there will give the team a huge serve. Would be great if we won the series 5 nil.

Author. The major portion of income derived by both the NRL & AFL is from Broadcasting Revenue. “n the winter”, mistake yes, cut and paste without wearing glasses, more of a spelling mistake though rather than grammar, don't you think?

Dexter, You must be related to the Author.Go back to reading Israel Folou articles.

There is a nasty streak that runs through you for some reason. Cant you add criticism without insult?

Author, What a useless article. "n the winter you either play NRL or AFL," Ever heard of Soccer & Rugby? "The Super League war – not a scandal, but it certainly did not do the game any favours – back in the 1990s for rugby league was over 20 years ago and the game still has not recovered. " Haven't recovered my bum.The NRL currently have broadcasting rights contract of AUD 1.8 million over 5 years. Massive increase since 1996. Back to school for you.

hi Jason, I think you've over exaggerated this issue and the impact on Australian cricket moving forward. We're obviously heading into winter which will help because most fans will not concern themselves with cricket for another 5 months or so, which will allow the public to calm down and get behind the side for next summer. You're 100% right, Australia will be under scrutiny for any wrong/illegal play, but so will every other team. If I'm involved in a national team for any cricketing nation, I'd be making sure the players aren't going to do anything stupid, on or off the field. On that note, it will be interesting to see how the ECB handles the fallout from the Stokes incident. I don't think it matters which way the verdict goes, this was a way worse look for cricket than the ball tamoering incident. Cricket won't go down the same path as Super League and you can't compare the two. In the recent instance, 3 players decided to do something incredibly stupid, were caught and punished. Their reputations are currently at a low level but Australian cricket as a whole is not so bad, because action was taken. A better comparison is with players who have been called for chucking in the past 50 years and the most recent of these was Murali. Yes it was a scandal at the time and many, including me, still think he threw the ball, but it was only one player, not a whole team. What Australia need now is the national team wins games, while playing attractive cricket. This will quickly take peoples minds off the SA issue.