Opportunities to cheat
IT IS very difficult to write about anything other than the cricket cheating event that has recently occurred.
It is one thing to behave without due regard to proper behaviour but quite another when it involves a premeditated decision to cheat.
The wrongness of the hatched plan was obvious to many near to the event and equally obvious to any decentminded people, cricket-lovers or not, if or when they became aware of it.
I would like to know who else was aware of what was being proposed... and did nothing about it by way of public protest.
OK; Smith, Warner and Bancroft are the primary cheaters but those who knew and did nothing must also stand condemned.
Perhaps they couldn’t believe their ears; perhaps they were certain that those in authority would know about it and stop it; perhaps they weren’t surprised and shrugged their shoulders.
Any of us can cheat; some of us have. Some of us knew we were cheating.
Many of us didn’t realise that what we were doing was cheating.
I believe that we all are “entitled to make mistakes”.
To believe wrongly that something we have said or done is acceptable is a very human failing.
It is a strong reason for us to be compassionate towards the wrongdoer and non-judgemental when we become aware of the “cheating”... as long as the cheater realises that an error has been made and genuinely regrets it.
It is the cheaters’ responsibility to review their offending action and to minimise the wrong that it can cause... and not do it again! In all walks of life the opportunities to cheat exist.
For example, “Cheating by copying” is a reality in any examination. Students struggling to respond to a particular test question in a crowded examination room can be more than aware that the person sitting adjacent to them might well have a far better answer that it would be tempting to copy.
In my experience few allow their
‘‘ HERE WAS A BLOKE WHO HAD MADE A MISTAKE, REGRETTED IT AND LEARNED A HELL OF A LOT ABOUT HIMSELF AND THE CRICKET-LOVING PUBLIC IN THE PROCESS.
eyes to stray... but the opportunities and temptations are very real.
Don’t get me wrong... my years of work in our universities led me to believe that most students are scrupulously honest with themselves and the systems that control their lives and their futures. But... the opportunity to cheat is always present.
I think our sports leaders would benefit from awareness that all of us could cheat if we wanted to, but we choose not to.
I listened in particular, last Saturday, to David Warner the last of the main culprits.
He failed to answer some very direct questions about who else might have been involved.
Other questions also gave him an opening to do damage to the actions or reactions of others in the Australian party.
He could have been accused of deliberately side-stepping most of these issues. Indeed he did appear to be very reluctant to give any answers that might have implicated colleagues.
Many listeners may have been very critical of this, and the interview lacked the “bite” that some may have been expecting (and hoping for).
I thought he did very well in sticking to his assertions about his own behaviour and remaining silent on any other implications regarding colleagues.
He has done the wrong thing for the team and Australian cricket in general. He wholeheartedly acknowledged this and, unless he is a far better actor than I suspect of him, he was sincere, contrite and genuinely ashamed of what he had done.
I actually felt sorry for him as he struggled to make his statement of involvement.
Here was a bloke who had made a mistake, regretted it and learned a hell of a lot about himself and the cricketloving public in the process.
I hope that, one day, he will be admitted back into “the club”.