‘Time doesn’t match crime’
One-match ban for ball tampering ‘inadequate’
THE PUNISHMENT does not match the outrage! This was the general feeling summed up by former Proteas captain Graeme Smith at the one-match ban given to Australian captain Steve Smith for ball tampering.
Graeme Smith was joining a whole chorus of big names in the game, including the likes of former Australian captain Michael Clarke and former great spinner Shane Warne, who slammed the Aussies yesterday.
Clarke said it was a “terrible day” for Australian cricket, and even said he was prepared to come out of retirement to help the team. Warne, meanwhile, said it was “un-Australian” to tamper with the ball, while Graeme Smith said the International Cricket Council (ICC) had “missed a chance to lead the game”.
Graeme Smith is also upset that Australian opener Cameron Bancroft, who was caught on television tampering with the ball, had received the same punishment as Kagiso Rabada did for a shoulder charge on Steve Smith in the second Test.
Graeme Smith was reacting to the ICC decision to ban Steve Smith for one match – the governing body’s maximum penalty for ball tampering – following his admission of guilt on Saturday evening that the Australian team had orchestrated a plan to tamper with the ball during the third Test, won emphatically by the Proteas yesterday.
The world’s No 1 batsman will not play the fourth and final Test later this week in Johannesburg, having, along with vice-captain David Warner, been stripped of their leadership duties earlier in the day by Cricket Australia, with wicket-keeper Tim Paine taking over the reins.
Bancroft, the player to actually tamper with the ball, was given three demerit points and fined 75% of his match fee after accepting the Level 2 charge.
“I think the ICC missed an opportunity to really handle this properly and lead our game. They haven’t done that. You have had two players who have admitted guilt for cheating. I think that’s huge!” Graeme Smith exclusively told Independent Media.
“I can’t remember ever seeing a foreign object (on the field) to change the ball. The pictures are damning. I mean, it shouldn’t be that Cricket Australia are setting the example. The ICC should be setting the example. I don’t know what the right ban is, but it shouldn’t be just one Test match.”
There has been an outcry all over South Africa that Bancroft, who was shown on the big screen trying to hide a yellow piece of tape down his trousers on Saturday afternoon after illegally trying to rub the ball, received the same punishment – three demerit points – for his offence as Kagiso Rabada did last week, when the Proteas spearhead brushed Steve Smith’s shoulder in the second Test at Port Elizabeth.
Although Rabada ultimately had his Level 2 charge reduced to a Level 1 after a successful Cricket SA appeal led by advocate Dali Mpofu, which allowed the 22-year-old to play at Newlands, the former Proteas skipper was still angry that the two incidents could be viewed in a similar light by the ICC.
“I have no idea who is setting these standards. Who within the ICC is deciding what mistake is worse than the other? I cannot believe that someone using a foreign object, who admits guilt to premeditated cheating, that gets less of a ban than a brush of a shoulder,” Graeme Smith said.
SOME dates you just never forget. April 11, 2000, was when former Proteas captain Hansie Cronje owned up to having “been dishonest” in the match-fixing scandal which was to rock cricket locally.
The ramifications were far-reaching: Cronje was banned from the game for life, and Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams received sixmonth bans and hefty fines. In addition, significant changes were made to the monitoring of players and matches in an attempt to clean up the scourge of match-fixing.
March 24, 2018, is destined to go down in infamy as one of those dates. The details are plain: Australia’s leadership group (the senior players, including the captain, Steve Smith) on Saturday during the lunch break discussed tampering with the ball to change its condition so that they could start to get reverse swing. The least experienced player in the Australian team, opener Cameron Bancroft, using some sticky tape and grit off the pitch, later during play “worked” on the ball.
His actions were caught on camera, and when questioned by the umpires, he tried to hide the evidence.
The matter has advanced swiftly. Smith and Bancroft owned up to their actions after the day’s play, and apologised.
FOR their part, the Australian cricket authorities acted decisively. For even though Smith had said he did not intend to resign the captaincy, he and his vice-captain David Warner were stood down from their positions with immediate effect, in the middle of the game.
Sanctions are sure to follow from the International Cricket Council. (Let’s not forget that we, in our recent past, have instances such as “zippergate” and “mintgate”, also to do with allegedly trying to to work on the ball. Both accusations were denied.)
There is probably more to come from the Australian cricket authorities themselves. The next 48 hours could be interesting in this regard, with an indication already that Smith, the world’s leading Test batsman, could be heavily punished.
Like the Cronje revelations, Saturday’s events felt like a blow to the solar plexus, if you love cricket.
It was the latest turn in an acrimonious series, and many will see it as a tarnishing of the spirit of the game, which demands severe penalties.