Cricket authorities found wanting

A bowler strays repeatedly on to the pitch in his follow-through; a fielder strides across the pitch between overs and causes avoidable damage as he goes; a bowler brushes sleeves with a batsman upon dismissing him.

Would the cricketing world have reacted with such outrage if Australia had committed one of these offences against South Africa? It would depend on the context, of course, but the question barely needs answering. There have been many transgressions at level two of the ICC code of conduct in recent times and none has come close to drawing reactions from prime ministers.

Yet those seemingly trivial offences listed above all fall into the same category for punishment as the blatant ball tampering admitted by Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft in Cape Town. And, as such, the sanctions handed down by the governing body for a scandal that has sent shockwaves through the game amounted to a one-match ban and a fine of his match fee for Smith, while Bancroft is free to play in the final test of the series after being fined 75 per cent of his fee for the previous match and given a handful of demerit points.

Graeme Smith, the former South Africa captain, summed up the gut reaction across the game. ‘‘They [the ICC] had an opportunity to set a precedent here,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s too lenient.’’

Further sanctions are likely to follow from Cricket Australia but the debate will continue to rage over whether the ICC has missed its moment to send out a hardline message. ‘‘The punishment doesn’t seem to come anywhere near fitting the crime,’’ Waqar Shah, a senior sports lawyer with Mishcon de Reya, said.

‘‘The whole thing stinks of flagrant cheating but, if that’s all you’re going to get punished for ball tampering, then it doesn’t seem much of a deterrent.‘‘

Seemingly, the problem for the ICC was those regulations in the code of conduct that bracketed ball tampering as a level-two offence. There are two further levels that deal mainly with threats or actual physical assaults, but the actions of Smith and Bancroft fell into the lesser category.

As a result, Dave Richardson, the ICC chief executive, issued a strongly worded statement in handing down the punishments, saying that the ‘‘game needs to have a hard look at itself’’. Yet the sanctions that he delivered were little more than a slap on the wrist.

Bancroft was punished for changing the condition of the ball, a level-two offence. The charge against Smith, laid down by Richardson himself, was concerned with ‘‘conduct of a serious nature that is contrary to the spirit of the game’’.

There are similarly general charges that can be laid in levels three and four, dealing with conduct of a ‘‘very serious nature’’ and then an ‘‘overwhelmingly serious nature’’, but Richardson did not feel able to increase Smith’s punishment.

MCC, the guardian of the game’s laws and spirit, issued a statement of its own. John Stephenson, the assistant secretary, said it was time ‘‘for a major shift in attitude and culture of all those with responsibility for leadership within the game to give young players the kind of role models who will uphold standards, preserve cricket and, vitally, the spirit of cricket for future generations’’.

The statement also noted drily an addition to the game’s rulebook, Law 42, was introduced last October, giving umpires greater powers to control behaviour, including sending players off for part or the rest of a match. The ICC adopted only part of Law 42, for the most serious offences.

It is unlikely that greater powers for umpires would have made much difference in Cape Town, as tampering is difficult to prove on the pitch. But there seems little doubt the incident will force the ICC to revisit its view of ball tampering as a level-two offence.

The punishment must fit the crime and the sentences for Smith and Bancroft fell short of matching the outraged reaction from the rest of the cricketing world.