Non-AFL chat thread part 2

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Hard Ball Get said:
I agree that a punishment needs to be strong, but don't think ball tampering should be put at the same level as match fixing.
Dump him captain and suspend him for 6 tests. That's effectively 2 series.
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Smith can never erase the words "Deliberate Cheat" from his resume. He will forever be remembered for that - much more than having once been touted as "second only to Bradman" and the hero of the Ashes series. Such a shame he has brought all this on himself while at the peak of his playing ability.

For us to select him again inside 12 months, even if not as captain, would look like a gentle rap over the knuckles. Even the PM has stepped in and called for "decisive action". It also looks like this affair could have a bearing on negotiations for the next TV rights deal. I wonder how many million that will cost CA?

It may not matter what the official sanction is anyway, because he will struggle to deal with the adverse publicity and the constant whispering and finger-pointing that will dog him for years to come. It's hard to see him coming back from this to be a force in Australian cricket.
 
dogwatch said:
Smith can never erase the words "Deliberate Cheat" from his resume. He will forever be remembered for that - much more than having once been touted as "second only to Bradman" and the hero of the Ashes series. Such a shame he has brought all this on himself while at the peak of his playing ability.

For us to select him again inside 12 months, even if not as captain, would look like a gentle rap over the knuckles. Even the PM has stepped in and called for "decisive action". It also looks like this affair could have a bearing on negotiations for the next TV rights deal. I wonder how many million that will cost CA?

It may not matter what the official sanction is anyway, because he will struggle to deal with the adverse publicity and the constant whispering and finger-pointing that will dog him for years to come. It's hard to see him coming back from this to be a force in Australian cricket.
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Fair points.
I think the one match ban from above is ridiculous.
 
Norm and dogwatch, you both make good points, and I agree wholeheartedly about "best player is not always best choice for captain" (exhibit A: Riley Gryphon), and also Smith's career being permanently tarnished.

However, for perspective (not directed at either of you, btw, just a general observation), the current Saffer captain is a convicted ball-tamperer. So any of his comments in regards to this, which he already offered post-match, should be taken with a planet of salt. Not in the same ball-park as offences? Agree. But any Saffer player/official/supporter who makes sanctimonious condemnations, should very VERY careful with their wording. as the hypocrisy will poke people's eyes out with its blatancy.
 

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ivan rassmussen said:
Norm and dogwatch, you both make good points, and I agree wholeheartedly about "best player is not always best choice for captain" (exhibit A: Riley Gryphon), and also Smith's career being permanently tarnished.

However, for perspective (not directed at either of you, btw, just a general observation), the current Saffer captain is a convicted ball-tamperer. So any of his comments in regards to this, which he already offered post-match, should be taken with a planet of salt. Not in the same ball-park as offences? Agree. But any Saffer player/official/supporter who makes sanctimonious condemnations, should very VERY careful with their wording. as the hypocrisy will poke people's eyes out with its blatancy.
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Fair point. When I said "we" shouldn't point fingers at other countries I was talking about the guilty (or accused) players/officials. I think it's appropriate for we fans of the game to discuss such things. I did mention that most other test-playing countries have been caught or accused of ball-tampering in the past, if not this blatantly.

There's never been a better time to resolve what is fair with regard to working on the ball and what is not. It's a great opportunity for the ICC to step in and clean up the image of the game, or at least this aspect of it. It could do with a good re-think.
 
ivan rassmussen said:
Norm and dogwatch, you both make good points, and I agree wholeheartedly about "best player is not always best choice for captain" (exhibit A: Riley Gryphon), and also Smith's career being permanently tarnished.

However, for perspective (not directed at either of you, btw, just a general observation), the current Saffer captain is a convicted ball-tamperer. So any of his comments in regards to this, which he already offered post-match, should be taken with a planet of salt. Not in the same ball-park as offences? Agree. But any Saffer player/official/supporter who makes sanctimonious condemnations, should very VERY careful with their wording. as the hypocrisy will poke people's eyes out with its blatancy.
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That still doesn’t change that our team captain cheated. The every body else does it response is something I would expect of a twelve year old.

We need to hold ourselves to a greater standard than the rest of the cheats. Better to play fair and lose than cheat and win.

The bunker mentality of this tour must have really twisted their perspective.
 
Hard Ball Get said:
I agree that a punishment needs to be strong, but don't think ball tampering should be put at the same level as match fixing.
Dump him captain and suspend him for 6 tests. That's effectively 2 series.
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Gotta say i've been thinking about this in the past day given it is only a level 2 incident, but I wouldn't be against levelling them up. Both incidents could be interpreted as artificially manufacturing an outcome either during the game or manufacturing a result that otherwise would not necessarily happen.
 
I won't be attending any matches Australia plays with Steve Smith as captain. Have Cancelled my cricket Australia membership and was clear with them why I did so. Hope he and the others cop a proper suspension.... not even allowed at Shield level & banned from IPL for a season.

We love cricket in my household and my sons first multi syllable word was cricket. As it's now footy season, time to 'be more bulldog'.
 
LittleG said:
I won't be attending any matches Australia plays with Steve Smith as captain. Have Cancelled my cricket Australia membership and was clear with them why I did so. Hope he and the others cop a proper suspension.... not even allowed at Shield level & banned from IPL for a season.

We love cricket in my household and my sons first multi syllable word was cricket. As it's now footy season, time to 'be more bulldog'.
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Believe he has already been dumped as his IPL team's captain after the team was booed onto the ground the other day.
 
I wonder what Qantas said, seeing Steve Smith and Cam Bancroft admit to premeditated skulduggery at the press conference while wearing their Australian kit featuring large and prominent Qantas logos. Asics too.
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"Any publicity is good publicity"?
I doubt it.
 
Pugz89 said:
Gotta say i've been thinking about this in the past day given it is only a level 2 incident, but I wouldn't be against levelling them up. Both incidents could be interpreted as artificially manufacturing an outcome either during the game or manufacturing a result that otherwise would not necessarily happen.
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I agree it needs to be punished a little harsher, but definitely think match fixing is that next level.
 
maddog37 said:
That still doesn’t change that our team captain cheated. The every body else does it response is something I would expect of a twelve year old.

We need to hold ourselves to a greater standard than the rest of the cheats. Better to play fair and lose than cheat and win.

The bunker mentality of this tour must have really twisted their perspective.
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Absolutely, I wasn’t trying to buy into the “everybody else does it” view, I probably didn’t make my point too clearly, but dogwatch did above. I think it’s s great opportunity to draw a line in the sand about cheating, and stamp it out entirely. The point I was trying to make is that anyone that cheats should be punished. Smith’s actions took it to another level and should be punished accordingly, but that doesn’t excuse other convictees, and Broad’s comments are also hypocritical given the previous English attempts at doctoring balls. Picking the seam, using a zip, mint, tape - all trying to obtain the same result - modified ball movement. Smith’s is worse due to premeditation, all are against the rules, and spirit of the game.
 
dogwatch said:
Fair point. When I said "we" shouldn't point fingers at other countries I was talking about the guilty (or accused) players/officials. I think it's appropriate for we fans of the game to discuss such things. I did mention that most other test-playing countries have been caught or accused of ball-tampering in the past, if not this blatantly.

There's never been a better time to resolve what is fair with regard to working on the ball and what is not. It's a great opportunity for the ICC to step in and clean up the image of the game, or at least this aspect of it. It could do with a good re-think.
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Agree, like I said the second part wasnt directed at you, just highlighting that cheating is fairly prevalent, and needs to be stamped out across the board. Modify the rules as required, to clarify that any ball-doctoring is outside the rules, exception being something like “fabric of clothing and sweat/saliva, etc” where the intention is to maintain balls surface, and no artificial deterioration allowed...
 

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So so stupid. Dumb idea to cheat, dumb method, dumb perpetrator, low-to-zero chance of it actually working, zero chance with all the cameras of getting away with it. They must live in a parallel universe where this seemed like a good idea.
 
Smith, Warner, Bancroft, Lehmann and (I strongly suspect) Saker deserve and I think will get their fair whack for their idiocy.

Talk of lifetime expulsion or prolonged suspension is I think a little bit hysterical.

Shane Warne and Mark Waugh once accepted money from an extremeeeely shady bookmaker for information on "pitch conditions". Multiple Australian test cricketers willingly took money from the apartheid regime and returned to the test side later in their career. Glenn McGrath spat on and made homophobic sledges towards towards two West Indian batsmen (1999, 2001).

The Baggygreen has been witness to shameful acts before and will be again, and while this one was incredible in its ill-conceived and brazen nature I don't think the fabric of the sport in this country or our national sporting integrity are at stake as some are making out.

As for Mike ''dirt in the pockets'' Atherton and Stuart ''stand on the rough side of the ball with my spikes'' Broad, I find extremely galling they are choosing this point in time to say anything at all.
 
Scary_Foot_9 said:
Smith, Warner, Bancroft, Lehmann and (I strongly suspect) Saker deserve and I think will get their fair whack for their idiocy.

Talk of lifetime expulsion or prolonged suspension is I think a little bit hysterical.

Shane Warne and Mark Waugh once accepted money from an extremeeeely shady bookmaker for information on "pitch conditions". Multiple Australian test cricketers willingly took money from the apartheid regime and returned to the test side later in their career. Glenn McGrath spat on and made homophobic sledges towards towards two West Indian batsmen (1999, 2001).

The Baggygreen has been witness to shameful acts before and will be again, and while this one was incredible in its ill-conceived and brazen nature I don't think the fabric of the sport in this country or our national sporting integrity are at stake as some are making out.

As for Mike ''dirt in the pockets'' Atherton and Stuart ''stand on the rough side of the ball with my spikes'' Broad, I find extremely galling they are choosing this point in time to say anything at all.
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Or perhaps we've consistently set the bar too low on the ethical standards expected of those "representing not just their team but their country"? How can it be acceptable at all that this sort of behaviour will so predictably happen again in the future?

As John Wylie, chair of the Australian Sports Commission, said today (I paraphrase): this sort of affair is not spontaneous but is the result of a culture that has built up over time.

There's never been a better time to stamp it out and start building a better culture and a few safeguards.
 
dogwatch said:
Or perhaps we've consistently set the bar too low on the ethical standards expected of those "representing not just their team but their country"? How can it be acceptable at all that this sort of behaviour will so predictably happen again in the future?

As John Wylie, chair of the Australian Sports Commission, said today (I paraphrase): this sort of affair is not spontaneous but is the result of a culture that has built up over time.

There's never been a better time to stamp it out and start building a better culture and a few safeguards.
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I think there are actually a few different issues here (all of which relate to some degree) in preventing this from happening again so I will try to unpack them them one by one.

First one, ball conditioning and doctoring/tampering (The Line).

Everyone to varying degrees does it at high levels of cricket in order to win.

Intentionally bouncing it into the keeper.
Picking at the seam to get it out of shape so it is replaced with one more roughed up and conducive.
Using hair product/sugary saliva to harden the shiny side (Marcus Trescothick might have won England the Ashes through innovation in this area).

Due to a lack of conventional swing with Kookaburras everyone is overly reliant on reverse swing as a mode of dismissal for pace bowling. If you were to wait for the ball to become abrasive enough naturally on non-subcontential (AUS, NZ, SA, ENG) wickets you will be waiting in the region of 50 - 60 overs before it starts to go if it does. If you're playing against set batsmen the quality of De Villiers and Markram you're f'd basically.

I would argue there is a clear line somewhere between cleverly managing the condition of the ball and outright overt tampering, it's an art and a skill like many aspects of the game such as tactics or psychology. Some would disagree with me (you might be of this opinion DW) that there should be no human interference with ball at all, that the keeper should throw it to the umpire and it be inspected before every delivery from the bowler.

However, I think human interference with the ball is to deeply ingrained at all levels of the sport and too hard to police (and I think it would make for pretty boring cricket too) to root out of the game ultimately. So occasionally these incidents will happen (I doubt though one as brazen or overt as this will ever happen again).

FWIW I don't think Australia was the first country to overstep the line. We just did it in the most reckless and undeniable way.

Second one, team culture.

Lehmann has clearly encouraged a win at all costs, ultra aggressive mindset within the Australian team.

This through various means (sledging, stairwell antics) this has resulted in an immense amount of focus and attention on David Warner. It is my opinion (or complete conjecture on my part) that his role of ball conditioner could not be played after the Durban test due to him being a demerit point away from suspension along with the focus of the bandaging on his hands. Thus Bancroft was thrust (whether voluntarily or through expandability I'm not sure) into the role unprepared and ill equiped. He is a very much 'team first' type of kid though so he tried to play the role none the less.

The Rabada reversal created a siege mindset particularly in Smith and Warner (possibly encouraged by Lehmann's commentary on the crowd) and they in the grips of desperation and madness instructed Bancroft to tamper with the ball by means that means that way overstepped the line.

We all know what happened next. The kid done messed up in an obvious and undeniable fashion.

This mindset was always going to catch up with them, especially when they engaged in darker arts like sledging and ball tampering. What we don't know if their actions/mentality were entirely influenced by Lehmann or some independent decisions were arrived at by the players. Ideally it shouldn't matter of course, they are responsible adults who should know the difference between right and wrong, but his culture/mindset had given them the life blood of any team, unity and success, so it was possibly quite difficult to abandon in the cruciendo of though combative tour. Where you come down on it probably depends on who you think is ultimately responsible for the course of the team, the coach or the players (in this context my gut says Lehmann).

Last one, punishment

I think if you can get rid of or modify the existing culture you can mitigate the risk of brazen cheating incidents like this happening once again (much of this one I don't think was systemic but rather the circumstance of someone trying to impress/buy trust with their teammates). As misguided and ill concieved the whole thing was they were operating in an environment where ball conditioning is tacitly allowed by the ICC's weak discipline structure.

Losing the captaincy and vice captaincy in absolute disgrace and missing cricket because of this is something that I think will never leave either Smith or Warner. A clean slate could be beneficial from a cultural/perception perspective, but having a heavily weakened side without your two best batsmen is not something that I think will improve the fortunes of Australian cricket in the long run either.

Sportspeople can contain multiple facets to their character. Steve Smith can be both a terrific batsmen and a poor captain who couldn't set the right culture for his team and as a result this terrible thing occurred.
 
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Agree with a lot of that, especially the complex aspects of Smith's character. His character flaws could be the stuff of a Thomas Hardy novel about a gifted and well-intentioned man who, through circumstance and naivety, falls from grace. And no doubt most if not all test playing countries are guilty of some degree of ball-tampering from time to time.

I don't however agree with the bit about "well everybody does it to some extent so we've got to expect it and can never really root it out". Polishing the ball on the pants is probably OK but even that could be part of a broad-based re-think about what you can do to the ball. The hard part is how to police it during a game without destroying the flow. Or perhaps the scope can be limited by making it compulsory to switch to a new ball every 50-60 overs?

Clearly ICC do NOT think it's OK to deliberately throw the ball so it bounces on the hard practice wickets because umpires already warn players about that. Ditto picking at seams, treading on the ball, scuffing it on the ground, and so on ... they are all recognised and proscribed shady practices but as we know they've been executed with a little more slyness than Bancroft's ingenuous efforts.

I also think you're missing a couple of aspects of the Australian team culture:
(1) the arrogance behind a bunch of players thinking "we can do what we like/ what we can get away with" - I think its roots go back 30-40 years in Australian cricket when the larrikin hard-nosed but highly successful Chappell era set the tone for Australian sides for the last quarter of the 20th century.
(2) The so-called "bubble" that professional test players live in where they become disconnected with everyday morals and the "pub test" of what's fair. They seemed genuinely surprised at the furore it created among Australian cricket fans.
The first one is hard to turn around. The second is probably easier to fix.

Not saying any of this is a simple matter but the massive public interest and outrage makes it a great opportunity to have a cleanout of old rules, assumptions and behaviours.

Controversy over unethical play is of course not new. The biggest stink ever in cricket occurred in the 1930s and momentarily threatened international relations between Australia and England. They eventually sorted that one out. They amended the rules after that and those rules are still working today.
 
Hard Ball Get said:
I get CA emails as a result of trying to score free tickets a while ago. I must say the correspondence from Cricket Australia has been spot on. Fair to say they are seething.
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Can't say i've seen Sutherland like he was at the presser the other day... Trying to negotiate a tv deal atm as well apparently, this won't help the cause.
 
I remember watching the under-arm delivery live. That was far more on the nose and shocking as a viewing spectacle because no one thought such a thing would ever be contemplated as it it was so far outside the spirit of the game. Whilst also on the nose, I find this a lot less surprising. But unsporting and hypocritical for sure.
 
any punishment that means warner never plays for aus again i support..

smith , Bancroft only get 3 test match ban max, maybe a few odi

i think the reaction is over the top
 

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Non-AFL chat thread part 2

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