Is Emily Smith's anti-corruption ban too harsh?

Utterly absurd. A simple reprimand, or even a wholly suspended ban of 1-3 games would have sufficed to ensure neither she nor anyone currently playing WBBL did anything that silly again. The punishment and the 'crime' are not even remotely in synch here.

So the whole sport goes into lockdown and punishes players for doing absolutely normal things... because someone, somewhere might be betting on it? You can't see how insane that is?

That comparison is ridiculous, if you dont know not to tamper with a drug sample in this day and age you have utterly no idea in the first place. Are you actually presuming that was the first time in history that someone has tampered with a sample to become a precedent. Furthermore if you warn someone about this new concern and say now people know the next one gets banned how is that allowing it to happen in the future.

The “rules” are pretty vague on this point.

How far to we take this to cave to the betting company's desires? Like is Justin Langer banned from revealing his Test XI until he's personally phoned Tom Waterhouse? I honestly can't believe this, a player getting paid an extremely modest amount to play the game she loves gets banned for posting that she got demoted in the batting lineup, in a game that was no chance of being played anyway. Surely we should stand up and say, actually, it's a players right to reveal the playing XI if they want

So because it had no consequence she shouldn't be punished? There are rules, the rules were broken. Exotic betting markets exist, where a player to over/under score runs, the entire batting line up IS relevant information. Knowing someone likely wont bat, bet the unders

She knew the rules and she did the wrong thing. End of story. Is everyone complaining because she is female? As long as any male cricketer gets the same suspension all is good. And don't go back to many years ago just go back to when the rule was brought in or updated. You can't compare different decades unless nothing has changed.

So you obviously don't read the Australian, or where-ever the story was. It was pouring rain so unlikely to be any play which turned out to be the case. The team was being written down on a whiteboard and being bored being videoed at the end by one Emily as she was demoted from 9 to 10 in the batting order and wrote, "absolutely robbed", in the comment section of the blog. The big guys at Cricket Australia saw the opportunity to demonstrate how important they are compared to a previously unknown female playing for the Hurricanes in Tasmania (where the hell is it on the map) and the fact that she may be influencing Aud$100m worth of illegal gambling on the subcontinent (that's what they're spending on the Women's Big Bash). This is the problem with being female where inflated dumb male egos make the decisions.

It's a stupid thing to do, but we open the door for corruption when we don't punish her. It's like the Willie Rioli urine test where he put Gatorade in the vial. If we don't harshly punish him than anyone with drugs in their system just has to put Gatorade in a vial in order to avoid a lengthy sentence for testing positive to drugs.

Sorry, that should have said “not obvious”.

Banned from all cricket?! That makes a manifestly unfair penalty even more outrageous, when you consider the sandpapergate bans and Pattinson getting one match for a homophobic slur. Peter Fitzsimmons in the SMH today summed up what really stinks about the action taken by CA “Why such an absurd penalty? There is only one explanation. That is that rather than cricket being a game with a gambling affiliation, it is veering towards becoming what racing is – the raw material of a gambling exercise, where the focus is less on the game itself than its sanctity for gambling purposes. And that means that something as innocuous as releasing a team's composition early – which would not have even attracted a frown in a pre-gambling era – now warrants heavy suspension. ....At a time when this country has a real problem with endemic gambling destroying lives and tearing apart families, the administrators of our national game make their move: they nail to the wall, as a warning to others, someone who inadvertently pissed off the gambling czars. She wasn't doing anything corrupt, she wasn't cheating, wasn't placing bets against her side to win – or anything remotely of that nature. She just posted a team-list up an hour early. And for this she gets a nominally equal suspension to the perpetrators of #sandpapergate.”

Too harsh!

I gather from other stories Smith posed this as a reference to where she was going to bat, suggesting she should have been batting higher? That said, I'm disappointed Mary is asking questions about where she got the info, etc. That is simply deflecting from the real issue; this professionally paid sports person deliberately did something wrong and has now had a penalty assigned. Is 3 months too long? The same article suggests off shore sports betting on these types of games is becoming increasingly popular, so posting the team list early could be seen as given punters additional information and certainly something bookies of questionable character would pay for. In any event, the only question that should be asked was, did Ms Smith receive sufficient education in CA's anti-corruption code, prior to the event, to then realize she'd made a mistake? I'm assuming the answer is "yes" given she accepted the penalties, so surely that's it.

It’s still obvious to me that what she did was a breach of the code. It was put on Instagram but there were reports that it was a closed account which I had thought meant that only people she knows can get access to it. If that’s the case then the test is whether she “ knew or might reasonably have known that such disclosure might lead to the information being used in relation to Betting in relation to any Match or Event.”. Interestingly the notes in the CA Code say that that “ nothing in this Article is intended to prohibit any such disclosure made within a personal relationship (such as to a member of the Participant’s family) where it is reasonable for the Participant to expect that such information can be disclosed in confidence and without being subsequently used for Betting.” So it does feel like there could be a bit of a long bow being drawn as to whether this is an offence. I also have a bit of a problem in that CA is judge, jury and executioner on these matters. If someone’s livelihood is at stake then I would have thought that there should be a more independent process because CA’s decision could be seen as trying to protect CA’s reputation as being tough on corruption rather than considering the actual conduct (for instance, CA themselves notes that she didn’t intend to breach the code which then makes me query whether it was reasonable for her to think that the info could have been used for betting information). And then notwithstanding all that, the punishment is still too harsh. A three game suspension would surely have sent the right same strong message while allowing Smith to continue to earn a living.

Via Sandpapergate CA have set a standard they will struggle to uphold, but suspending Emily Smith for her infraction would not have been too much of a hard call. She is small bananas compared with the three ball scrapers. Here's hoping they will maintain constancy and consistency.

Worst and dumbest ban in the history of sport. How its argued that its anti corruption makes no sense either. If you release information to the public then everyone knows the same thing there is no advantage to be gained through betting. The only times it does make a difference is if a key player is out injured and no one else knows about it yet. Even then the advantage to be gained is less to that to be gained using sandpaper. This is a ban aimed at fawning to the betting companies , and she is the sacrificial lamb. A small fine would have sufficed. The interesting thing about the Australian sandpaper incident is that Jeff Crowe told everyone he made his decision on Rabada and was going to announce it later. So there was ample opportunity for a betting plunge on information leaked that Rabada was being suspended. Then that was appealed and Rabada was reinstated so there was motive if a betting plunge happened based on a Rabada ban leak to do something to fix that match against South Africa.

I don’t think it is a fair punishment, however lower pay for the women players isn’t a reason to be less harsh when it comes to corruption. To me, the lower pay means that there is a greater risk of corruption in the WBBL because the players may feel more need to supplement their income. That said, I haven’t seen anything to make me think that anyone has done anything corrupt, and posting a very predictable team list to Instagram is hardly feeding inside information to a betting syndicate.