Whoever thought that this was ever going to be a good idea, should not only cop a suspension, loss of Captaincy, and in the coaches case, sack, … they should also be castrated so they cannot breed.
The stupidity of this is/was monumental, even if they weren’t in SA and had Warners bandaged broken fingered hand zoomed in on in HD close up every time he polished the nut, and the SA comms trying to make out HE was ball tampering just a week or so ago.
The fact that that HAD just happened and they then thought ,…" Hey, use this canary yellow thing on the dark red ball & if things get suss, just put that canary yellow thing down your white pants, … no one will ever see it", is just so far beyond imbecilic it defies belief.
I agree that premeditated and planned cheating by a leadership group is far more serious than 1 or 2 players using a fingernail or mint. Those latter crimes deserve a match, this deserves more, maybe 2 or 3 test matches for all those involved in the decision and I don’t think Smith should ever be captain again. This opinion is just based on what they have already confessed.
But we also need to stop this habit in Australia of pretending that we are above the opposition in terms of fair play. I criticised that very attitude only a few weeks ago on this thread, when we were accusing other nations of doctoring pitches and basically being a bunch of cheats, but according to some posters we are above that. Unfortunately we’re not, and we justify our behaviour by the idea that we don’t want to be disadvantaged as others are breaking the rules and playing unfairly.
Sydney cheated in the 1 point loss game last year when they deliberately over-watered the ground to slow us down. Disgraceful act that could have led to a serious injury and the AFL did nothing (at least publicly). Extended grunting in tennis is cheating. Sledging an opponents family or race is cheating.
We do all of this cheating stuff. We are a tremendously successful sporting nation but we are not a sporting nation committed to fair play. Winning is far too important for that.
I’ve played with and have known Boof for a long time but he has to go. He fully knew about it and even sent the 12th man out on the field to tell Bancroft to hide it
I must be a fool for believing the Vic Sheffield Shield captain didn’t mastermind having his bowling coach stand on the boundary line, surreptitiously wait until a ball was hit to him, then scratch the ball in the gutter.
"It’s hard to explain your emotions when it comes to seeing the Australian team doing something like this — you just feel embarrassed and disappointed.
It’s not the end of the world. But it is a sad day for cricket."
I think it’s just weird that we think Australian sportmen are somehow above all that?
South Africa (multiple times), England (multiple times), sub continental teams, ridiculous numbers of times.
And then we get caught out, and it’s the end of the world?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s bad, but it isn’t the end of the world.
The series of events they showed, if it was accurate just felt really dodgy. Especially when Bancroft gets the message and hides the sandpaper next to his sack then when the umps come over he pulls out his glasses case…
Barry, it’s not the end of the world, you are correct and I (we) are not saying that Aus cricketers are beyond doing this. We are reacting to this one issue. It is disgusting and there will be massive ramifications and rightly so. Katich thinks Smith, Warner and Lehman should be sacked and I agree.
If Langer were coach and Katich captain this would never have happened. I’d be very surprised and disappointed if Paine was involved cause of what I know of him, he is strong enough to front a group and say no.
I’m genuinely not sure this is any worse than I’ve seen or done on a football field.
Guess the difference is I only get paid peanuts, I’m not representing the country and I don’t have a half dozen cameras filiming gamds.
This was premeditated. They’ve admitted that. This was a group of senior players agreeing on a strategy to cheat. I can’t recall anything quite like this.
Exactly. Get the facts then act. Any other course of action would be foolish. He stressed that this would not be the end of it and that they would go beyond the ICC punishment already handed out. He can’t go further than that yet.
Don’t think Smith or Bancroft or any of them have understood the gravity of admitting to predmeditated cheating. The aftermatch presser was embarrassing. “…We/I have been found guilty of maybe ball-tampering”. Maybe? You think??? Puh-lease!
Their attitude was almost “yeah, we did it. So what?”
Premeditated cheating - to do it is bad enough. To send an 8-game patsy to do the dirty work is inexcusable.