Cricket is a topical subject these days, so I will keep this pretty short. Many of you might think I am way off anyway, but these thoughts have occurred to me over the last month or so.
Since the major blow up earlier this year, we have seen Australia play pretty poorly. I mean, I think a lot of structural changes have been made over the last ten years that are now coming to the fore to really affect our top cricketing results.
The structures of selection, the different types of cricket competitions, 12 months of cricket, the contracting issues etc – these all lead us to here.
I think it would have been handy had the recently released review really gone into depth about the whole Cricket system in Australia.
I mean anecdotally you could say that players are being selected for Tests on 20/20 form. Even form might be too strong a word… potential maybe?
Remember when we had a very strong Australian cricket team? Oddly, cricketers below the Australian cricket team were strong too.
Can someone imagine Stuart Law sticking around in the background as long these days, having scored the number of runs he was scoring? Boy. Nowadays, someone hits a good 70, and they seem to come into conversation for selection for Australia…
I don’t condone what was done against South Africa. But I will say, we are so far the only nation to punish the players involved so harshly, and properly really.
Hypocritically, some of those players who were hardly punished at all, had a lot to say on the matter.
I don’t care for arrogant cricket teams, or aggressive sledging etc. Do it. Don’t do it. It’s all the same to me. But Australia is not the only team doing it.
Australia is now one of many teams involved/caught in ball tampering. One of many teams, let’s not forget, so everyone else needs to get off their high horses.
Having said that, I think we are losing as a direct result of the mental toll of bearing the weight of guilt. Where we are now, is akin to hurting your little brother mucking around, so then you start playing really nicely, because you know you did wrong.
I think we have completely lost the ability to win, because we are all so horribly embarrassed about the ball tampering. We are apologetic, and don’t want to have a hard edge again, because we don’t want to be seen in that light again. That is it for me.
The ball tampering has really hurt our cricket in more ways that just reputation,though lord knows that was bad enough. To me, what it appears to have really done, is strip us of our moral high ground, which took with it the ability for us to really play hard to chase wins.
Now we seem embarrassed about the chance of possibly beating someone, so we collapse in a heap, and that is almost better than winning because then we can keep doing penance.
We appear to be in this kind of purgatory where we serve our penance for the debacle until goodness knows when. It’s easier for us to do that, than dig in and grit our teeth.
When will we have served enough penance? Never in some people’s eyes. So we might as well get hard nosed again, and start getting back into gritting our teeth.
Nick
Roar Rookie
Totally agree. We werent winning much prior to the incident and that was with Smith and Warner. Plus in the previous games Smith was not the sort of leader I would want for my team. Good batsman not a stand out leader.
bigbaz
Roar Guru
Out of the wreckage that is Australian cricket a real leader will emerge. I well remember ABs torturous journey to the top after he emerged from the WSC/Chappell/Hughes era , probably a worse period for Aussie cricket than the current debacle.
Brasstax
Guest
While I agree that the bans were outrageous, I don't recollect us winning too many games in any format prior to sandpaper gate. So I am a but puzzled with this piece. We were still losing an overwhelming majority of games in the bad boys era.
Chancho
Roar Rookie
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that they should never play for their country again. This tough love approach rarely works - there's still match fixing going on despite the harsh penalties handed out. I think your comments highlight what the author is saying about the purgatory following the punishment. Don't forget; to err is human, to forgive divine. I do however agree with you about bringing them back in ahead of the ban period, as was alluded to following the report, and I'm not too sure they would want to either, well maybe not Warner?
Steve Franklin
Roar Rookie
Is Australian cricket serious talking about bringing back the 3 cheats now they should never play for their country ever again,they have bought shame and humiliation to this once great and proud cricketing nation.So what if we are having a rough time at the moment we will one day get ourselves out of it when the next wave of decent bats and bowler's come through.Wanting these 3 cheats back in the side is a major step backwards and it is telling all the non cheating guy's in the side they aren't good enough unless they can cheat.I am a Steve Smith fan but honestly he should never be able to play first class cricket ever again same with the other 2 cheats.If the Australian cricket board do ever bring them back than they are saying it's good to be a cheat we will give you a few months off then bring you straight back into the side because it's ok to be a cheat.Bad move Australia a very bad move.
Paul
Roar Guru
Hoy I think (read hope) you're reading a lot into what amounts to 6 months of cricket disruption. We played that final SA Test in March and have since played an ODI series in England as well as a Test series and a T20 series in the UAE. During this time, we've had a brand new coach, some very interesting selections for the various touring parties and above all, a huge injury toll to available players. You throw in the mess the ball tampering has created and it's no wonder recent results have not been great. I think the start of this summer has been the equivalent of hitting a reset button. There have been some standout individual performances and some very competitive Shield cricket. Guys are coming back from injury and the squad for the SA ODI series barely raised an eyebrow, because it pretty much made sense. We badly need to win this first ODI to dispel your theory about losing our edge. We also need to play hard, competitive cricket with the Indians to maintain any momentum gained from earlier results. I have faith the current crop can do that -after all, they're representing Australia.
Ozibatla
Guest
Your article raises a good point and I think it well illustrates the predicament Cricket Australia finds itself in. Throughout history our cricket teams have been so good and therefore we demand continued success. Its a non-negotiable. However we have always been such a proud cricketing nation as well and the ball tampering saga dented that pride not just as a cricketing nation but a nation as a whole. So what to do? Unfortunately I think this will take time to resolve itself but it will ultimately. Sacrificing optimal results in the interim may be our only choice. Too bad the players let it get to this point. We dont have the same overall depth as yesteryear but we also appear to lack cricketers with maturity and a sense of decency. A sign of the times I suppose.