Smith and Warner to serve out their bans

AUSTRALIA have become a prisoner of their determination not to win at all costs after online opinion helped sink any chance of Steve Smith and David Warner getting an early reprieve.

The submission by the Australian Cricketers Association to have the bans lifted was rejected in full by Cricket Australia yesterday.

The players union was left to contemplate the prospect it was too aggressive in the way it launched such a polarising campaign.

ACA president Greg Dyer had declared that in light of the cultural review, Smith, Warner and Cameron Bancroft should have their bans immediately quashed.

But within 24 hours, one of the union’s strongest advocates, Simon Katich, was among those to disagree with that stance and from there debate raged across the game.

In reality, the ACA submission was more detailed, but Dyer’s broadbrush call for the players to return to play straight away might have confused the more subtle argument that perhaps allowing them to play some Sheffield Shield cricket would be a fair and reasonable compromise.

The key line of the 145-page cultural review was “winning without counting the costs”, and that sentiment is now a ball and chain which Australia must carry in every step of the cricketing journey.

Had the bans been lifted or even changed, Cricket Australia would have left itself open to this criticism as the men’s team battle on the field through one of their darkest periods.