Possible life ban for Smith
DISGRACED Australian cricket captain Steve Smith may be slapped with a long ban from the game today as the Australian cricket chiefs fly into South Africa to decide his fate after the Newlands ball-tampering scandal.
Smith was banned for one Test by the International Cricket Council, but the widespread anger in Australia has led to suggestions that the Aussie chiefs may hand out a much sterner punishment.
A life ban from the game has even been suggested. The incident has been met with astonishment in Australia, with the protagonists – Smith, his vice-captain David Warner and opening batsman Cameron Bancroft – lambasted in the media under headlines almost universally trumpeting the word “Shame”.
Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive James Sutherland arrives in South Africa today to join integrity chief Iain Roy, who is conducting the investigation. “We know Australians want answers and we will keep you updated on our findings and next steps, as a matter of urgency,” Sutherland said.
There is no hyperbole involved when Australians describe the cricket captaincy as the country’s second most important job behind that of prime minister; and the concept of playing “hard, but fair” has always been integral to the national identity.
For Smith, therefore, to have deliberately conspired to cheat by getting a junior member of his team to tamper with the ball during the third Test against South Africa cuts to the very quick of the Australian psyche.
“As this disreputable tour descended from the gutter into the sewer, the mythical line the Australians use as the yardstick for their behaviour has not only become blurred but disappeared altogether,” Andrew Wu wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.
“The disconnect from what Steve Smith’s men deem as acceptable behaviour, compared to the majority of the public back home, has become as wide as the Indian Ocean which separates them.”
Yesterday, the Australian team players remained in their Cape Town hotel in preparation for the transfer to Johannesburg for Friday’s fourth and final Test; though, for many, their minds must surely be already on home.
Indeed, joining the chorus of condemnation, Australian Sports Commission chairperson John Wylie said: “Frankly, we believe that Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft should have been on the first plane home yesterday”.
There were few smiles as they chatted quietly among themselves, some enjoying family time by the pool on what would have been the fifth day of the third Test had South Africa not ripped through their batting on Sunday to inflict a crushing 322-run defeat and take a 2-1 lead in the series.
Smith, Warner and Bancroft were nowhere to be seen, though.
In the space of two days, top batsman Smith has gone from Australia’s cricketing golden boy to national pariah.
It has also cost him the captaincy of Indian Premier League side Rajasthan Royals, who announced yesterday that he had agreed to step aside, to be replaced by Ajinkya Rahane.
Smith, widely accepted as the world’s best batsman of the current generation, has been reduced to a villain, with former Australian cricketers deeming his return to lead the team as untenable.
“Steve Smith’s time as Australia’s captain is surely up,” former fast bowler Jason Gillespie wrote for Guardian Australia..
I CALL on Cyril (our first-name president) to instruct the home affairs minister to grant refugee status and urgent immigration visas to Australian sports fans for whom life in Australia is no longer tolerable.
This is only fair after their nauseating visa offer to “white South Africans”.
The recent cricketing events have obviously inflicted mental torment on ordinary Australian citizens.
It has long been known that life in Australia has its challenges, and that Aussie sport is one of the few consolations for antipodean gloom.
Now that the country’s sporting heroes have been shown to be unsporting cheats, well, life in Australia must be unbearable.
South Africa should open its immigration doors to honest, sport-loving Aussies.
Irrespective of race, obviously. I imagine that without Home Affairs sanction, they may well try to reach South Africa in rafts and other unsafe conveyances. Australia has some experience with those.
There’s no need for that. Let’s grant them special “sporting visa” status, and fly them into Waterkloof air base, using the Gupta’s jet plane.
The aircraft can be retrofitted to accommodate Aussies. Seats can be sandpapered smooth, and the airline food on offer can be humble pie.
As to the intriguing possibility of offering return visas for those South Africans who have emigrated to Australia, and who now wish to return to this country, I’m really uncertain.
I mean, they baled when they thought we were on a sticky wicket. Now we have Cyril, and they have Steve Smith and Bancroft. Magtig, that’s what you call a change of fortune.
Maybe we can offer them repatriation visas, but only if they promise to first undergo a period of probation on one of those Pacific islands which Australia uses to hold asylum seekers.
They need to maintain a low profile, stop bad-mouthing South Africa, and learn the words of Nkosi Sikelel’’iAfrika.
And they need to start supporting South African sporting teams with the same gusto which they showed towards Aussie teams so soon after they reached the promised cricketing land.
Another allegiance turnaround shouldn’t be too difficult for them. Gilad Stern Highlands Estate