Contrition from the cheats
‘‘I’m sorry and I’m absolutely devastated.’’
Sacked Australian cricket captain Steve Smith hardly needed to say those words, for contrition was written all over his face.
At a media conference in Sydney on Thursday night, a tearful Smith showed just how much the captaincy meant to him and how distraught he was by his fall from grace.
About an hour earlier, batsman Cameron Bancroft went through a similarly excruciating experience in front of the cameras in Perth.
These were men who understood the gravity of their offending and how much it had cost them.
The third co-conspirator in the ball-tampering scandal that has horrified Australia, David Warner, is yet to front in quite the same way. The instigator of the firestorm, and a brash character to boot, he is easily cast as the chief villain. Cheats. Shame.
The players let down their fans and their families. They conspired to cheat and got caught. They shamed their nation. Their punishments include 12-month bans of anything above club cricket in Australia for Smith and Warner, and nine months for Bancroft.
There’s no question the players crossed the line.
And so has Cricket Australia. The punishments are an overreach by an organisation desperate to placate angry fans and commercial partners. That’s not the same thing as sound decision-making in the best interests of the game.
If the players dare appeal, and the process is fair, it’s hard to see how the length of the bans can stand. They’re nothing like punishments given to other cricketers for similar offending.
Yes, the cheats must be punished. Yes, the players brought the game into disrepute. Yes, Cricket Australia had to send a strong message.
But chief executive James Sutherland was slow to take the scandal as seriously as he should have. He also embarrassed Australians when he initially dodged calling the ball-tampering incident cheating. What sanctions does he face? How does the board justify the organisation’s lurch from indifference about unacceptable player conduct to suddenly being hyper-concerned about the national men’s team’s image? Where has the national outpouring of virtue been for the past 10 years?
Cricket Australia has failed to keep a sense of perspective. If Cricket Australia has courage, it will admit that it has failed to be fair.