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Baggy Green ball tampering: Bancroft, Smith and the Aussie "Leadership Group"

Larwood's_boots

U19 Debutant
'He [Smith] will lose it all, everything. And I doubt whether he will ever play cricket for Australia again. It is dreadful,' celebrity agent Max Markson told the Today show.

:laugh:
Which state did markson play for again? :laugh: love to see his bowling figures.

Unwashed indeed
 

Spark

Global Moderator
Willing to bet that all these same people still take the "eh, just an innocent mistake" line to Warne and Waugh's shenanigans back in the day, and even to Warne's diuretics.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
We would make great progress on this country's problems if we just banned breakfast variety TV shows
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
The media reaction has been over-the-top by orders of magnitude tbh. It really isn't that important.
It is and it isn't.

The outrage is justified. These guys have broken the sacred oath to respect and uphold the game and its traditions and laws. It's absolutely worth the media backlash.

The offense itself is not harshly punished by the ICC because in the grand scheme of things its not that bad in and of itself.

It's akin to a government minister responsible for anti - speeding legislation getting pinged under the same laws, the hypocrisy makes the story.
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Willing to bet that all these same people still take the "eh, just an innocent mistake" line to Warne and Waugh's shenanigans back in the day, and even to Warne's diuretics.
Their stories were easier to accept because of who they were and the circumstances of those stories.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
So what was your point?
That much of the media overreaction was based on the popular myth that Australian cricket in its successful period was particularly exemplary in anything other than winning a lot. A lot of the shock/anger in the wider public is based on the idea that this team has betrayed the principles upheld by the noble forebears, but that really isn't true. People have simply found ways to rationalise away those dubious episodes because they wanted to, and they haven't hear because they don't, which is why manifestly worse offences - doping violations and exposing the game to potential match fixing influence and corruption - are excused. You unwittingly said it yourself: part of the reason people cared about less was because of who they were, i.e. members of an extremely successful side, whereas this side has been patchy at best for a decade now.

There's a reason the reaction on CW is milder. I would suggest it's because no one here really believed in this myth in the first place (although I would contend that they were uniquely or overly bad in that respect).
 
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vicleggie

State Vice-Captain
Malcolm Knox being savaged by angry feminists for comparing this to the #metoo movement. They're saying he was mansplaining.

I suddenly like Malcolm Knox.
 

the big bambino

International Captain
Personally I couldn't see how diuretics could improve Warne's performance. Whereas altering the ball was an attempt to restrict the last innings target to win this test leaving no chance of losing the series and every chance of winning it. I think this is worse.
 

Athlai

Not Terrible
Personally I couldn't see how diuretics could improve Warne's performance. Whereas altering the ball was an attempt to restrict the last innings target to win this test leaving no chance of losing the series and every chance of winning it. I think this is worse.
IIRC it was that the diuretics contained a banned substance that is used as a masking agent by athletes to hide proper performance enhancing drugs.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
Personally I couldn't see how diuretics could improve Warne's performance. Whereas altering the ball was an attempt to restrict the last innings target to win this test leaving no chance of losing the series and every chance of winning it. I think this is worse.
They wouldn't, they would just let him take other substances that would improve his performance without being detected. So since the very act of taking them makes it impossible to determine whether you're taking true PEDs, legally and morally they should be treated equivalently.
 

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