Every one is up in arms against Steven Smith and his team, and rightly so. Ball tampering is cheating. Scheming to tamper the ball, as Smith admitted, is even more heinous. Reports are coming in that this is it for coach Lehmann and that Smith and Warner will get one year bans. Seems fair. The buck stops with the captain in cricket, which in this case is Steven Smith. Let me be clear, I am satisfied that he is being punished.
Two points, I will ponder here, though.
Firstly, why so much outrage at Australia compared to South Africa, say. It seems to me that for years, every one has been trying to get a point to bash Australia over. When finally, after years, they are caught red handed, all hell breaks loose. Harbhajan cries foul about the punishment meted out to him ages ago. Every one is raging. Finally, they get to say, 'fuck you, Australia'. This explains the reaction of the world far more than the reason given - the boorish culture which has existed under Smith, Warner and Lehmann. Else, I don't see why the cricket world would explode as it has. Is it exploding because it's cheating, or because Australia has done it and has no where to hide?
The second point is about people trying to justify this anger saying this is different from other times we have had ball tampering as usually they are impromptu events. I would like to ask those gentlemen, how did the mint used to tamper the ball suddenly come on the cricket field in earlier cases? Ideally, I would have liked to have seen Faf du Plessis also banned for a year for his actions.
Why stop at that? Dravid was clearly seen using a cough lozenge. Why should standards be different for Dravid and Afridi compared to Smith? The Tendulkar incident makes me cringe now when I think about it.
On the third day Tendulkar had bowled four overs of gentle medium pace but had almost immediately started swinging the ball more than any other bowler. The local TV producer instructed cameramen to zoom in on Tendulkar's hands, ostensibly to check what grip he was using. Instead, on two occasions he was spotted working on the seam of the ball with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. The commentators went into overdrive and close-up replays were shown ad nauseam.
In his eyrie Denness saw this and asked to be sent a copy of the recording. What he saw left him in no doubt something untoward had occurred. But lost in the maelstrom that followed was the fact that Tendulkar stood accused of not informing the umpires he was cleaning the ball under Law 42.3 (b), rather than tampering with it.
On the fourth day Denness informed India he would be banning Tendulkar for one match, suspended for a year, for his actions. Ganguly was to be given a similar suspended punishment for not controlling his team - Wisden noted that considering he had been suspended and/or fined three times in the previous 12 months "he was fortunate to get away with only a suspended ban for not upholding the spirit of the game".
No one in Australia is at least going 'oh Smith is a god and cannot have any blemishes'. Mike Denness was cast away from the ICC soon after, for no fault of his except doing his job.
I am glad Smith and company are being penalised for the wrong doing. I wonder why the cricket world didn't wake up earlier to this malaise. While it's better late than never, it will take a culture change in various countries to root out ball tampering from cricket.
