A cheat is a cheat

[stephen]

This is a complete myth. Australian athletes have been routinely involved in more perverse forms of cheating without the level of hysteria attached to what those three Test players faced.

A fair and equitable justice system is one where the penalties are consistent.

The line between sandpaper and breath mints is as grey as a English winter's day.

Australian athletes but not cricketers. Cricket is the national sport and is the team sport that the whole nation identifies with. It's a part of Australian identity. More so than football or swimming or tennis.

 

[Borges]

I have a lot of sympathy for Bancroft; he was placed in a no-win situation. It is not fair to club him with the likes of Smith and Warner.
What can a rookie do when a senior member of the team, with either open or tacit approval of the captain, asks him to cheat?

 

[social]

I have a lot of sympathy for Bancroft; he was placed in a no-win situation. It is not fair to club him with the likes of Smith and Warner.
What can a rookie do when a senior member of the team, with either open or tacit approval of the captain, asks him to cheat?

Say no

 

[Burgey]

This is a complete myth. Australian athletes have been routinely involved in more perverse forms of cheating without the level of hysteria attached to what those three Test players faced.

A fair and equitable justice system is one where the penalties are consistent.

The line between sandpaper and breath mints is as grey as a English winter's day.

I think you'll find no Australian athlete has ever engaged in any form of cheating, thank you very much. Including the events in South Africa this year.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I have a lot of sympathy for Bancroft; he was placed in a no-win situation. It is not fair to club him with the likes of Smith and Warner.
What can a rookie do when a senior member of the team, with either open or tacit approval of the captain, asks him to cheat?

Deserves more sympathy than Smith as far as I'm concerned.

 

[TheJediBrah]

This is a complete myth. Australian athletes have been routinely involved in more perverse forms of cheating without the level of hysteria attached to what those three Test players faced.

A fair and equitable justice system is one where the penalties are consistent.

The line between sandpaper and breath mints is as grey as a English winter's day.

If anything mints/lollies are worse. They actually work.

I have a lot of sympathy for Bancroft; he was placed in a no-win situation. It is not fair to club him with the likes of Smith and Warner.
What can a rookie do when a senior member of the team, with either open or tacit approval of the captain, asks him to cheat?

Bancroft is far more guilty of anything than Smith is. Smith was just punished for being a weak personality and a weak leader.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Bancroft is far more guilty of anything than Smith is. Smith was just punished for being a weak personality and a weak leader.

The idea that Smith was just a meek little boy miseld and bullied into cheating by big bad Dave Warner sounds like bullshit to me.

I have sympathy for him and don't think he deserved anywhere near the kind of ban he got but that doesn't mean he didn't make a huge error in judgement. From all accounts he knew about the tampering that was about to take place and went along with it. "Being a weak personality and a weak leader" is just dumb wordplay to make it seem like he was completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

We've got ****s saying Smith deserved a life ban and we've also got people implying Smith did barely anything wrong and both extremes are dumb. He did a booboo but got disprortionately harsh punishment, that's all.

 

[Second Spitter]

Australian athletes but not cricketers. Cricket is the national sport and is the team sport that the whole nation identifies with. It's a part of Australian identity. More so than football or swimming or tennis.

This is jingoistic nonsense. Perhaps my sarcastometer is having an off day, but i can't image any rationale and educated human being to believe this.

I think you'll find no Australian athlete has ever engaged in any form of cheating, thank you very much. Including the events in South Africa this year.

Okay then. I restrict my comments to horses.

 

[Burgey]

Fortunately no one really gives a thought to your concerns, OS.

All three of these little Aussie battlers have been unjustly pilloried and victimized by the world's cricketing nations, the media and their own Board. Vaughan received an OBE and his team MBEs for doing the same thing in 2005. Faf was reappointed captain of his country. Tendulkar is idolized in India and was convicted of ball tampering. If Kohli did the same thing Smith did, the BCCI would build a statue to him and if their opponents protested, would threaten to take the Indian team home from whatever tour they were on, all while pocketing some decent Arthur Ashe from a bookie on betting that there'd be a no-result in the next fixture.

In the case of Pakistan, the players would be banned for life because they were cheating to try to win rather than earn some cash by tanking or spot fixing. The latter also goes for Bangladesh (no one pays them to tank because they're **** anyway, same for the Windies). Chandimal was caught ball tampering in June this year and appointed captain of SL in all three formats in September. Over in NZ, in between winning Spirit of Cricket awards, the players who aren't making dough on the speaking tour talking about how they took a bottle top to a ball in order to win a test against Pakistan a few years ago are appearing in court in the UK charged with match fixing.

Then, when a couple of fair dinkum Aussie blokes have a crack at winning a test match using tried and true measures adopted by their hosts and every other opponent since the 1990s at the latest, they cop a year off. This incident will only increase the siege mentality of our national team, inspiring them to thoroughly bend India over this summer before launching a successful Ashes defense in the UK next winter. TPC will return and dwarf even his own previous output. Bancroft will come back and gloriously average bout 34. I don't know what Warner will do, neither does he. And no one cares.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Fortunately no one really gives a thought to your concerns, OS.

All three of these little Aussie battlers have been unjustly pilloried and victimized by the world's cricketing nations, the media and their own Board. Vaughan received an OBE and his team MBEs for doing the same thing in 2005. Faf was reappointed captain of his country. Tendulkar is idolized in India and was convicted of ball tampering. If Kohli did the same thing Smith did, the BCCI would build a statue to him and if their opponents protested, would threaten to take the Indian team home from whatever tour they were on, all while pocketing some decent Arthur Ashe from a bookie on betting that there'd be a no-result in the next fixture.

In the case of Pakistan, the players would be banned for life because they were cheating to try to win rather than earn some cash by tanking or spot fixing. The latter also goes for Bangladesh (no one pays them to tank because they're **** anyway, same for the Windies). Chandimal was caught ball tampering in June this year and appointed captain of SL in all three formats in September. Over in NZ, in between winning Spirit of Cricket awards, the players who aren't making dough on the speaking tour talking about how they took a bottle top to a ball in order to win a test against Pakistan a few years ago are appearing in court in the UK charged with match fixing.

Then, when a couple of fair dinkum Aussie blokes have a crack at winning a test match using tried and true measures adopted by their hosts and every other opponent since the 1990s at the latest, they cop a year off. This incident will only increase the siege mentality of our national team, inspiring them to thoroughly bend India over this summer before launching a successful Ashes defense in the UK next winter. TPC will return and dwarf even his own previous output. Bancroft will come back and gloriously average bout 34. I don't know what Warner will do, neither does he. And no one cares.

So your point is that everyone cheats but only the Australian board was dumb enough to punish the players simply to attempt to retake the moral high ground and give the impression that they're the ultimate guardians of cricketing morals? So that's exactly what I've been saying.

I guess that does prove you don't care about what I have to say though, since evidently you've not read my posts

 

[Burgey]

Lighten up mate. ffs.

I don't think CA is Machiavellian enough to set out on a plan like you've mentioned. I think they were genuinely and stupidly surprised by what happened on their watch, and since then they've panicked in the face of a public outcry and then set about just trying to save their own arses ever since.

 

[stephen]

This is jingoistic nonsense. Perhaps my sarcastometer is having an off day, but i can't image any rationale and educated human being to believe this.

Is it? Would there have been national outrage if a tennis player used a racket that was too large or if a footballer got caught doing some cocaine? There would have been a small story on the third page about it if you were lucky. Cricket matters so much more to the national narrative than any of the other sports in this country. And it's one we always believed we played straight and were the best at. To hear and see Australian players cheating was an attack on our national pride. It's why the PM got involved and why it dominated headlines for at least a week during the football season.

 

[TheJediBrah]

The idea that Smith was just a meek little boy miseld and bullied into cheating by big bad Dave Warner sounds like bullshit to me.

Yep this had been said plenty of times, by plenty of people, but that doesn't make it any more wrong. Unfortunately how it sounds to you has little bearing on reality.

 

[Starfighter]

Yep this had been said plenty of times, by plenty of people, but that doesn't make it any more wrong. Unfortunately how it sounds to you has little bearing on reality.

As I've said, some people seem to have an interest in making this seem bigger than it actually was.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

of course, of course.

 

[Second Spitter]

Is it? Would there have been national outrage if a tennis player used a racket that was too large or if a footballer got caught doing some cocaine? There would have been a small story on the third page about it if you were lucky. Cricket matters so much more to the national narrative than any of the other sports in this country. And it's one we always believed we played straight and were the best at. To hear and see Australian players cheating was an attack on our national pride. It's why the PM got involved and why it dominated headlines for at least a week during the football season.

We are arguing two distinct points:
1. You are saying that cricketers are factually held to different standards -- which I am willing to accept.
2. I am arguing that cricketers shouldn't be held to different standards (because the whole notion that cricket forms an important part of our culture is a media-fueled myth).

Perhaps what concerns me the most is this idea that Australian cricketers were morally squeaky clean altar boys before Newlands.

Sledging, for instance, in other sports is not tolerated, so why is it accepted in cricket and the Aussies seem to be the pioneers of this practice. If you sledge somebody in baseball, you will get drilled during your next at-bat (or your team's best player in lieu of you).

 

[GIMH]

I’ve no problem with them coming back as long as they are thoroughly searched before each session, and a team of umpires follow their every move at all times. Given the way they cheated England out of our hard-earned Ashes, let’s not risk it happening again.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Where did Ron Paul go

I’ve no problem with them coming back as long as they are thoroughly searched before each session, and a team of umpires follow their every move at all times. Given the way they cheated England out of our hard-earned Ashes, let’s not risk it happening again.

If players were thoroughly searched and watched by umpires for ball tampering then England might still have never won the Ashes since 1989

 

[GIMH]

Where did Ron Paul go



If players were thoroughly searched and watched by umpires for ball tampering then England might still have never won the Ashes since 1989

I think you’ll find our actions were more than acceptable. What does Ron Paul have to do with this?

 

[Starfighter]

Sledging, for instance, in other sports is not tolerated, so why is it accepted in cricket and the Aussies seem to be the pioneers of this practice. If you sledge somebody in baseball, you will get drilled during your next at-bat (or your team's best player in lieu of you).

That's absolute bullshit.