DID THEY CHEAT IN ASHES TOO?
Aussies caught in ball-tampering scandal Captain Smith banned — and now faces sack Broad attacks dirty tricks England players are left questioning...
DAvID WArnEr has emerged as the central figure in Australian ball-tampering skulduggery that stretches back to this winter’s Ashes matches.
Sportsmail understands that in a brazen act during the post-series drinks between the teams, Australia’s vice-captain revealed his method of altering the ball’s condition to a band of England’s defeated players.
It revolves around the strapping the 31-year-old wears on the thumb and index finger of his left hand. Abrasive substances are then attached to the tape to rough up or dull one side of the ball — a crucial factor in promoting reverse swing.
Oddly, although Warner regularly wears the protective coverings while in the field, he removes them while batting.
Australia captain Steve Smith was banned for one match yesterday and fined his entire match fee of £10,000 by the ICC after he admitted the ‘leadership group’ of his team were all in on the premeditated plan to cheat in the humiliating third Test loss to South Africa in Cape Town.
Earlier, on the eve of the fourth day’s play, Smith and his deputy Warner stood down from their positions of responsibility, with Tim Paine taking over the captaincy. Cameron Bancroft was also docked £7,500 and received three demerit points after television footage showed him holding a piece of yellow sticky tape and then hiding it down his trousers when he realised the cameras were on him.
At the end of Saturday’s play, Australia admitted Bancroft was illegally attempting to alter the ball’s condition by applying it to its rough side, increasing the chances of it gathering dirt from the playing area.
However Bancroft is no more than a patsy. Australia only switched to their eight-cap batsman as chief ball polisher after Warner aroused suspicion in the second Test at Port Elizabeth, where a dressingroom attendant saw him putting sandpaper into his strappings.
England paceman Stuart Broad questioned whether the Aussies had been up to dirty tricks in this winter’s Ashes. He said: ‘In virtually all those Tests they reversed the ball in conditions you wouldn’t expect the ball to reverse. I don’t understand why they’ve changed their method for just one game.’
Australia avoided detection
It IS up to Australia now. Up to the men with the power behind the baggy green cap they hold so dear to do what has to be done. Only sweeping action against the captain, coach and senior players who have let down their country will suffice.
there is no point leaving it to the International Cricket Council. the toothless governing body will never take the lead at a time of crisis — and goodness me what a crisis this has become — and do what is right for the battered old game.
A one-match ban for Steve Smith and a fine for Cameron Bancroft were the most the ICC could muster yesterday as what started as a clumsy, comical attempt to tamper with the ball became one of the great cricketing scandals.
they will say they could do no more, that they are bound by a code of conduct which considers the emotive subject of artificially altering the condition of the ball as no more than a ‘ level two’ offence. they will continue to fiddle while Rome burns.
So Cricket Australia will have to see the bigger picture. they will have to ban Smith, his nasty little sidekick David Warner and the rest of the infamous ‘ leadership group’ for a year and they will have to sack coach Darren Lehmann.
But, much more than that, they will have to disband a culture that has made Australia the most hated cricket team in the world and start again. If Smith, Warner et al do not comply when they return, they are finished in the game.
to follow events in South Africa and Melbourne from afar yesterday was to witness a juggernaut gaining momentum at frightening speed. If the sheer arrogance of an Australian captain who thought he was untouchable stopped him from realising the severity of his actions when he faced the cameras in Cape town on Saturday, he was quickly made aware of just how big this is.
It only seems like yesterday that Smith was being lauded as the greatest batsman since Bradman during an Ashes series Australia dominated.
Now he will always be remembered as the symbol of a team that hurtled out of control under his leadership. Now he will always be the cheat Steve Smith.
For this is about so much more than ball-tampering. the premeditated cheating on the third day of the third test was a tipping point for all that has gone so badly wrong with the Australian team.
the reaction to the storm that engulfed Smith and his side from Australia and the wider world yesterday told him all he needed to know about what the game thinks of his unpleasant, pious regime.
At least, it would if Smith and Warner had any self-awareness. Clearly they do not, because they had to be told to stand down as captain and deputy ahead of play yesterday. they should have jumped before they were pushed.
Let’s take Australian reaction first. there was the sight of Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland, his voice crackling with emotion, emerging in Melbourne to say: ‘Australian fans want to be proud of their team. this morning they will wake up and not be proud. this is a sad day for Australian cricket.’
then, significantly, came prime minister Malcolm turnbull, who left no room for doubt over what should happen next when he said: ‘I am shocked and bitterly disappointed by the news from South Africa. It seems beyond belief that the Australian team have been involved in cheating. Our cricketers are role models.’
Well, the PM cannot have been watching too closely over the last couple of years if he is that shocked, but the impact was unmistakable. Smith was finished as Australian captain.
two other Australian voices stood out amid the noise that engulfed the game yesterday. Adam Gilchrist was the epitome of fine sportsmanship during his outstanding career. He was everything that was good about the greatest Australian team of them all, before becoming an outstanding ambassador for the game. Now he recognised his national side for what they are.
‘ I’m shocked, stunned,’ said Gilchrist. ‘ I’m not trying to overdramatise this. I’m really emotional and saddened about it. And embarrassed. Australian cricket and the integrity of Australian cricket is the laughing stock of world sport.
‘We’re quick to damn nations that cheat and go against the rules. Now we’ve just had our national captain and team say they sat down and planned a way to cheat.’
Most poignant of all was the reaction of vastly experienced and respected Australian broadcaster Jim Maxwell, who broke down in tears on air as he was trying to make sense of what had unfurled in front of his eyes.
‘I don’t remember ever being as disappointed with an Australian team as this,’ said Maxwell before emotion overwhelmed him.
Poor stand-in captain tim Paine — described as the ‘ only decent bloke in the team’ by one observer close to Australian cricket — was handed the poisoned chalice of taking over the reins for the last knockings of the third test won comprehensively by South Africa yesterday and had to apologise to a nation after their capitulation to heavy defeat at Newlands.
While there was shame in Australia, there was anger and condemnation from some of the biggest figures in the world game and more than a little schadenfreude about ‘ Mother cricket’ coming back to bite its most bitter protagonists. Matt Prior, for one, could be forgiven for enjoying the fact that Nathan Lyon, who launched a totally unprovoked attack on the former England wicketkeeper before the last Ashes, was implicated in the leadership group.
then, from here in Auckland, came Stuart Broad, who became the designated spokesman for an England team who clearly did not want to remain silent or mouth platitudes. they wanted their views known.
‘I saw Steve Smith say it’s the first time Australia have done this,’ said Broad. ‘to me, it’s surprising why they’d change a method that’s been working.
‘Look at the Ashes and in virtually all those tests they reversed the ball in conditions you wouldn’t expect the ball to reverse. I don’t understand why they’ve changed
their method for just one game.’ Read into that what you will.
Broad also addressed Lehmann — a coach who surely cannot escape the sack despite Smith’s attempts to absolve him of blame.
It was Lehmann, remember, who urged the whole Australian nation to abuse Broad during the 2013-14 Ashes and ‘send him home crying’ over that most Australian of ‘ crimes’, failing to walk after edging a catch. Was Lehmann not hypocritical in complaining about the South African crowd’s treatment of his players now?
‘That’s your word not mine, but I would agree with you,’ said Broad. ‘We lost that series but it didn’t make me cry. I can’t understand why he’d moan about a different country and what they’re saying to their players. If someone wants to take you on verbally and they’ve started that fight, you’re allowed to say something back.
‘From the outside, it looks as though Australia have started a lot of fights and then moan when someone comes back.’
Exactly. It is the sanctimony that really gets you. And the sense that Australia, in the form of their captain and vice-captain, felt they could get away with anything.
The unpleasant ways of Smith and Warner, the Dastardly and Muttley of world cricket, were always likely to catch up with them but nobody dreamed it would be as sudden and spectacular as this.
Cricket cannot afford to offer them any sympathy, not when the Test game is under threat like never before. Sutherland has dispatched CA performance director Pat Howard and head of integrity Iain Roy to South Africa to sort this mess out and they must know what needs to be done.
Quite where Australia look for leadership with the future of half the team and their coach in doubt remains unclear, but they need a Brendon McCullum-type figure to rescue them from the abyss now. The stakes are high and only the strongest action will do.