Say it ain’t so, Australia
Cricket is a mystery for many, but for nations raised on the game it is more — much more — than a sport. Cricketers are looked up to as representations of something higher, more noble, a personification of the human spirit. (No, I’m not joking, bear with me here.)
Indeed, the preamble to the official laws of the game states that it should be played, not only within the rules, “but also within the Spirit of the Game.”
It has been used as inspiration in song and poetry to motivate, to elevate and to instruct.
In the 19th century, Sir Henry Newbolt used cricket as an analogy on how men should conduct themselves in battle and later in life. He wrote in Vitai Lambada (The torch of life):
And that is why a nation raised on the religiosity of the game will turn with ferocity against those who shame it by cheating. Witness the national soul-searching now taking place in Australia. Even the prime minister has been dumbfounded.
“After all, our cricketers are role models,” said Malcolm Turnbull this week. “And cricket is synonymous with fair play. How can our team be involved in cheating like this? It beggars belief.” But cheat they did. According to the Cricket Australia authorities, vice captain David Warner gave instructions to bowler Cameron Bancroft on how to cheat while playing a match in South Africa last weekend. Bancroft used a piece of sandpaper to alter the condition of the ball so that it would change the way it bounced, making it harder for a batsman to hit. (Something similar can be done in baseball. But the similarities end there. In baseball, cheating — perhaps a better word would be “adjustment,” Clancy Sigal wrote in the L.A. Times in 2007 — is not so much frowned upon as applauded. “Cheating is baseball’s oldest profession. No other game is so rich in skullduggery, so suited to it or so proud of it,” said sports columnist Thomas Boswell.)
Australian team captain Steve Smith was also in on the sandpaper plot.
But the cheating was caught on camera and despite the bowler awkwardly trying to put the evidence — said sandpaper — down his trousers, the conspiracy was uncovered.
“Sandpaper, lies and videotape,” boomed the headline from the Sydney Morning Herald.
The players were sent home in disgrace.
“I just want to say I’m sorry for the pain that I’ve brought to Australia and the fans and the public,” said a tearful Smith, who has lost the captaincy and, along with Warner, has been banned from playing high-level cricket for a year.
All three players were ordered by cricket authorities to complete 100 hours of voluntary service in community cricket. The hit to their wallets will be immense.
The Australian coach, Darren Lehmann, resigned in tears five days after the cheating was revealed.
Cricket has been part of the Australian psyche for more than 200 years. An Aboriginal team went over to play England in 1868 — 33 years before the actual founding of Australia as a nation. The cricket captain has been compared to the second most important job in Australia, only behind the prime minister (although Turnbull this week claimed Australian cricketers were on a higher pedestal than politicians).
To see such flagrant cheating has shocked the country to its core. “Shame” has been a particularly prominent headline.
It is difficult to convey just how stunned Australia is. If the Canadian Olympic hockey team was caught cheating, well, it still wouldn’t amount to half the national angst that the Aussies are going through.
Ben Johnson’s 1988 doping scandal? Close, but no gold medal.
“It could be the darkest day in Australian cricket,” wrote Kate O’Halloran in Britain’s Guardian.
Although, truth be told, cricket around the world has seen many dark days with ball tampering, bribes, match-fixing, and so-called gamesmanship that amounts to serious abuse. Despite all this, cricket players achieve almost mythic status in their native countries.
Plus, this is Australia. Australians just don’t do this, do they?
Australia, said The Associated Press, was having its “Say it ain’t so, Joe,” moment.
Legend has it that a small boy approached Shoeless Joe Jackson in 1920 after the Chicago White Sox player was indicted for allegedly taking a bribe to throw the World Series.
“Say it ain’t so, Joe,” begged the boy, according to the story.
Almost a hundred years later, Australian Benji Harris, 12, spoke for a nation when he echoed that statement.
“Why did you do it?” was what Benji wanted to ask the former cricket captain.
To that, Smith had no answer. But on Thursday he still wanted to say something to Benji and all the other kids.
“I love kids wanting to play the great game of cricket that I love. Any time you’re thinking of making a questionable decision, think about who you’re affecting. You’re affecting your parents. To see the way my old man has been” — Smith choked up and cried, then continued — “and my mum. It hurts.”
If only he had listened to Newbolt: “Play up! play up! and play the game!”
OUR CRICKETERS ARE ROLE MODELS. AND CRICKET IS SYNONYMOUS WITH FAIR PLAY. HOW CAN OUR TEAM BE INVOLVED IN CHEATING LIKE THIS? IT BEGGARS BELIEF. — AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER MALCOLM TURNBULL