After Sandpaper Shame, Australia Attempts Bold Tempering

Australian cricket is stuck in a web of lies that it has have spun, and Steven Smith, the captain, has paid the ultimate price, copping a one-year ban from all significant forms of the game. 

The first lie was on the field, when Cameron Bancroft tried to pretend he had done nothing wrong. The next one was Smith’s silence as he watched the umpires question Bancroft after video evidence of wrongdoing was aired on the giant screen. The third fib came from Darren Lehmann, the coach, who furtively communicated with the twelfth man on the walkie-talkie, prompting him to rush onto the field and urge Bancroft to shove the damning evidence in his underpants.

But, wait, it does not end there.

Fronting up to the media, Smith said that the leadership group knew of this devious plot and had at least tacitly approved it. This left players such as Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood distinctly uncomfortable, and the pair have since claimed ignorance of the plot privately, although this seems a bit rich given they, as fast bowlers, were the direct beneficiaries of the malpractice.

Cricket Australia banned Smith and David Warner — for whom there is, unsurprisingly, no sympathy — for a year each, and Bancroft for nine months, not so much for the act of ball tampering, but for the damage they had done to the image of the game in their fair country. In sanctioning these three, James Sutherland, the chief executive, tacitly exonerated the rest of the group. Whether this is merely damage control, or the actual truth, we will never know.

The inquiry Cricket Australia conducted, flying its integrity officer — how many sporting boards actually employ such a person? — and chief executive, to South Africa, was equally confusing. The evidence was so clear, so visual and so harmful that a kindergarten kid could have come up with a conviction, leave alone a match referee. It is rare that any sporting misdeed is captured in its entirety in high definition for most of these things occur in the shadows, or at the very least in grey areas. Yet, caught with pants down, and fig leaves covering modesty long been chewed up, Cricket Australia had little choice but to draw the line.

Like most lines that are drawn in sand, though, this one is impermanent and subject to change without further notice. Australia have been masters at telling the world: do as I say, don’t do as I do, and there is no reason to believe this latest fiasco changes things. Australia’s cricketers tell the world what kind of abuse is personal and what is not, what is permissible and what is offensive. Australia’s coach dictates when a crowd is behaving appropriately and when it is disgraceful. Australia’s cricket boss decides who is culpable and who was merely caught in the crossfire.

One thing has become starkly clear through all this. There was a time when the cricket world looked to Australia for direction, whether it was about fitness and nutrition, strategy and leadership, coaching and playing or governance and professionalism. Today, the world has moved on collectively, while Australia has remained a distant island on the high seas.

To expect them to define the line that must not be crossed is as futile as handing a toddler a crayon and expecting her not to colour outside the lines.