Cheating

As soon as I saw the look on Smiths face when the umpires were talking to Bancroft, I knew Smith was in on it.

There are a number of factors that make this worse than the dirt in the pocket stuff in my opinion. The Aussie team are really hard to like. The coach really went for Broad a few years ago and then had the nerve to bleat about unfair treatment in South Africa. Lyon talked about ending careers Before the ashes. The way they went after Rabada was out of order. Smith setting himself up as a guardian of the game and making it clear that he felt he should have been consulted with after the ban was overturned. Has anyone heard Warner talking about the du plessis ball tampering a few years ago? Basically said the rules are there for a reason and we’d never stoop so low. They’re massive hypocrites. They asked for stump mics to be turned down so no one could hear them going after the South Africans then again, had the nerve to complain when South Africa reacted. Smith got the youngest guy in the team to ball tamper. He was also really stupid when fronting up to the press. This stuff about it being the leadership team may have been him trying to protect Warner but he has dropped Starc, Lyon and Hazelwood right in it. 

Ultimately, they have some throughly unlikable men in their team and have brazenly tried to cheat. Taking a foreign object into the field to try and alter the condition of the ball and then try and cover it up on the field is not a foolish one off incident. It is systemic. 

Smith’s position is untenable and I suspect he will miss at least 6 months cricket. Lehman will also lose his job. I cannot imagine this happening if Langer or Gillespie were in charge. I have no idea why Warner was VC in the first instance. If Lyon, Starc or Hazelwood we’re involved then they will be banned to and will be out of the running for the captaincy.

Its possiblr the whole leadership grohp were in on it, but i am sure most of us think that is unlikely as surely someone would have said no youd think even if Smith still went off and did it.

Smith didnt have the guts to take the fall himself and has tried to throw as many people under the bus as possible

However in bad news it's no longer really acceptable or desirable to persist with the line that Steve Smith is actually an Englishman!

My views for what they are worth:
1. The Australians have been working their way to something like this for ages. They are at the centre of most public spats in cricket over the past 10 years. Other nations have their arguments and occasional back page story but it is Australia who have had the obvious clashes with England but also with India and others. I think they believe themselves to be untouchable and that they can do what they like. David Warner has been bullying other players from other teams for years and no Australian captain has been able to contain him. He seems to have no limits on his behaviour. Cricket Australia, individual Australian captains have ignored what has been happening on the pitch and when it has blown up they laugh it off with macho comments. Even Michael Clarke who has come out strongly against SS was just as bad when he abused and threatened James Anderson 4 years ago. The ICC seem incapable of acting against such on field or off field behaviour. They have accepted it. This has led Australia to believe they can do what they want. When other teams have tried to fight fire with fire such as in this test when the SA crowd gave Warner’s wife and family some grief he comes out and complains. I do not condone families being abused but Warner needs to realise that his on field and off field bullying has implications. Did you see the twitter spat between Michael Vaughan and Mrs Warner, I think MV came out on top. (It’s on the BBC website for cricket). And in the end what right has David Warner to start saying what the boundaries for decent or acceptable behaviour is or isn’t.

2. This incident was premeditated and organised and was not an off the cuff incident that happened in the heat of the moment. It was planned amongst this “leadership” group, was basically a conspiracy to cheat and get an unfair advantage through unfair means. It was a conspiracy, organised in the dressing room and not a reaction to on the field cricket. For that Smith, Warner ( captain and vice captain) and anyone else in this leadership group should be banned from test cricket for a long time. That won’t happen but it should.

3. Steve Smith has shown himself up to be a poor example of a captain. He has basically in his press conference with Bancroft not accepted responsibility and spread the blame to this leadership group. In my mind the captain is responsible for all on field behaviour and as such it is his fault and his responsibility totally. So now instead of shouldering the blame he has implicated many others in this conspiracy to cheat. That will make his leadership impossible and without any credibility. That the youngest and most inexperienced player was left to do the dirty leaves me speechless. I don’t condone Cameron Bancroft at all but Smith is the principal culprit. Bancroft has come over as a stupid young man lacking maturity and judgement and lacking any realisation of the importance of what he was about to do. You can blame that on youth but that would be an excuse. I understand that Mitchel Starc is fuming because he claims to have known nothing about it all and yet the implication was that he was a part of this leadership group. I guess there is a lot more yet to come out about it.

4. The role of Darren Lehmann, the coach needs consideration. When Stuart Broad didn’t walk some years ago Lehmann went on the offensive and promised him a hot re+epitomises in Oz. Which he got! Yet he stated earlier on this week that the SA crowds were abusing the Australians and there should be action against them. As ever the Australians like to give it out but don’t like it back. Was Lehmann part of this leadership group, I can’t believe he wasn’t.

5. My son in Australia was saying how badly this is playing out in Australia. We were having an email conversation to and fro on Saturday and CricketAustralia he thinks are going to act quite strongly esp after the PM of Australia became involved.

So overall the repercussions to this could be enormous. The ICC, Cricket Australia will have to act strongly. Australia have been leading up to this for years and believed they could do what they liked. Smith thought all be had to do on Saturday was go on TV say he was sorry and that was that. He was apologising for getting caught not for doing it. He must have been stupid, as they all were, to think that the TV cameras would not see someone doing what they did. How did they think they would get away with it? They have been winding people up for years hoping for a reaction that would get caught by the stump microphone and get their opponents into trouble. Yet they thought they could get away with such blatant cheating because they thought they were untouchable. Any problems with an opponent they just set bully boy Warner on to them.
I think this is what they mean by karma or to take a biblical metaphor, you reap what you sow.

Sorry to go on, rant over. As you can see I am very angry about what they have done. They are in a very privileged position playing cricket and they have abused that position.

Now admitted it was sandpaper not tape. The confession was pretty much a total web of lies. Can't take any part of it as the truth seemingly.

IPL and counties should dump them so they can only play grade cricket. Doubt that will happen though - no doubt the counties will roll out the welcome mat as usual.

Only banned from state and international cricket though. Not that CA have jurisdiction elsewhere of course.

You are right about Warner. No-one in his own team wants to go near him so hard to see a way back. Good batsman and fielder but a very ordinary human being.

I thought, and I may be wrong, that CA (and any other Cricket national body) have to issue a Non Objection Certificate for every Australian player playing overseas. So they have to give permission for players to play in the IPL and other competitions. I was presuming the 9 month ban on Cameron Bancroft would mean that he would not be able to play for Somerset. They are not surely going to give permission for him to play overseas when saying he isn’t fit to play for Australia. That would be just crazy.  If that’s not the case it switches the decision back to Somerset to decide rather than relying on CA to decide. A lot of late night meetings in Taunton today and tomorrow then! 

Interestingly irish, when it first arose at the weekend the overwhelming body of opinion was that he shouldn’t come and when thinking about a replacement the name Matt Renshaw was being mentioned by several Somerset supporters, the player now replacing Bancroft in South Africa. Now that CA have made their decision over the suspensions which has been mirrored by the IPL in regard to Smith and Warner I don’t think Somerset have any choice other than to support CA by cancelling or suspending the contract. To do so will maintain the idea of a cricket and world wide common response to the incident. Yes it will give Somerset a headache to get a replacement but I think self-interest has to come pretty low down the list of considerations and ultimately I’d be pretty sure the guys head can’t/won’t be in the right place to come here, into what will be a fairly hostile environment (yes I know I’m talking about Taunton but even so!!). A hard but correct decision made now will save a season of excuses, embarrassment, of officials trying to defend an indefensible position and a possibly divided dressing room. And when you say about a damaged start of the season for Somerset irish, I think either way now it’s damaged so I guess it’s deciding which option is likely to cause the least damage. But as I said self-interest has to be low down on the list of considerations.