Clayton’s bans are no form of punishment
Wouldn’t we all like to have it as bad as Steve Smith.
‘‘Banned’’ for 12 months, for his part in a test cricket ball-tampering cover-up, the former Australia captain is off to Canada shortly.
There he, along with the similarly suspended David Warner, will be a marquee player in a new Twenty20 league.
Warner, who was back training with New South Wales this week, is also having a hit in Darwin with – guess who – Cameron Bancroft. Bancroft got nine months for his part in March’s balltampering escapade in Cape Town.
The fine print says the trio aren’t permitted to play test or first-class cricket.
But it’s a Clayton’s punishment, while club and overseas Twenty20 leagues are allowed on the itinerary.
Even if Smith has suggested life’s been tough of late.
‘‘I probably spent four days in tears. I was really struggling mentally,’’ Smith told an audience this week.
‘‘It certainly was the toughest thing that I’ve had to do.’’
Tougher, even, than telling a story about what was used to scar the ball, in Australia’s test match against South Africa, and who knew about it.
Fast bowlers Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were among those implied to have knowledge of the plan, which both have refuted in recent days.
Smith’s honesty and ethics have been questioned by the pair but only to a point. After all, the former skipper has cited the toll on his mental health.
Along with ‘‘family reasons’’ mental health is one of the get-out-of-jail cards sportspeople occasionally play when they don’t want any scrutiny of their actions.
‘‘Two months down and counting,’’ Smith said of his ban.
‘‘Hopefully, by the time I get back to the game I’m fresh and ready to perform at a really high level again.’’
Forgetting, of course, that the Canadian league starts in three weeks.
Mind you, Smith, Warner and Bancroft are hardly alone.
Cricketer Ben Stokes and cyclist Chris Froome are examples that potentially problematic actions needn’t interrupt your career.
In September, Froome recorded an ‘‘adverse analytical finding’’ for twice the allowable limit of asthma medication during the Vuelta a Espana.
He went on to win the race, as he did the recent Giro D’Italia.
In doing so, he became just the third man to hold all three grand tour titles at once.
That’s the Vuelta, Giro and Tour de France and only France’s Bernard Hinault and Belgian Eddy Merckx have done it before.
It’s some feat and ought to be celebrated.
‘‘Froome does not belong on that list,’’ Hinault said.
‘‘He should never have been allowed to start in the Giro. Why do we have to wait so long for a verdict?
‘‘What right does Froome have to get so much time to find an explanation?"
Froome and his team have yet to prove why he recorded the adverse reading and he has been allowed ride on in the interim.
Even so, ASO, the company that run the Tour de France, have attempted to keep him left off this year’s start list.
September was the same month footage emerged of Stokes engaged in a street fight.
He’s since been charged with affray and will appear in court in August.
The Christchurch born-and-raised allrounder missed England’s tour to Australia last summer but was thrown a lifeline by Canterbury and later toured New Zealand with his adopted nation, played in the Indian Premier League and met Pakistan in a test at Lord’s.
Stokes might eventually receive a punishment. Perhaps Froome, too.
For now, it appears that, if you’re an elite sportsman, the wheels of justice can turn very slowly and that bans come with a few convenient clauses.