Cheating in cricket

Most of us will have seen the well-balanced documentary presented by Prime Television on the infamous cricket match in Melbourne in the early 1980s, when Australia bowled an underarm delivery to New Zealand batsman Brian McKechnie to ensure they did not lose the match.

Unfortunately, the documentary did not give anything but brief detail about what happened to the ball that was used. In fact, one of the umpires picked it up and stuck it in his pocket, then got changed and boarded a flight back to Perth – and that it is why it is sitting under a spotlight in the Cricket Museum at the WACA ground.

On the subject of cheating in cricket, much has been said in the sports media recently about the ball-tampering incident which resulted in two of Australia’s best cricketers being banned, and one can think back to many other unsavoury incidents that have taken place involving Australian teams, ie sledging. Perhaps we should lay the blame for this behaviour at the doorstep of the English Cricket Board, who started it all with the ‘‘Bodyline’’ ploy to get famous Australian batsman Don Bradman out. From then on, it became part of the Aussie cricketing DNA to win at all costs, regardless of how. Will this ever change? I doubt it!