Unfair Dinkum: it's not cricket... or, how Australia is in shock about a fallen hero

[BMJ]

Well great posts by all the australians saying it as it is.

With plenty of blue skies and warm weather what to do?

Might as well play sport, and this has morphed into the religion it is today for Australians no matter if it is afl, cricket, v8 supercars, rugby, footy or soccer.

You are born into a team and this team is handed down from one generation to the next like a prized family heirloom.

The sunday mass is equivalent to the weekly game played out by your team.

And an attendance of an event is a raptures occasion, just ask any true blue aussie that has attended that pilgrimage to Mecca the annual Bathhurst v8 supercar race.

And cheating by the highest members of your religion/team, such as Cameron Bancroft scrapping clean the cricket ball, is the equivalent of blasphemy of the highest order.

Resulting at the least in exile to some foreign land, just ask Trevor Chappell, or at the worse being hung, drawn and quartered.

[Bill Ryan]

I submitted this to the Guardian newspaper, which was inviting comments from the public.

* Explanatory note: Warner was Smith's vice captain, now widely rumored to have been the brains behind the scheme to cheat in this way.

~~~

Smith, Warner and the Human Condition

Thought for the day. (Maybe!)

This is all an archetype of the human condition that would make Joseph Campbell think hard.

How we always need (and create) heroes and heroines, and how they almost always let us down. It's like a search for perfection (out there, in others), and then when it all goes wrong, we crucify our saviors, one by one.

Heroes and heroines are hard to find, so we project them on to marriage partners, celebrities — and sports personalities. That quite often ends in tears.

And if Warner actually IS the villain — another archetype, of course — we have the fallen hero (Smith) who was fatally tempted by his darker, brotherly shadow. And then there's Bancroft, the young patsy, who was probably too afraid, or naive, or trusting, to just say no.

Shakespeare could write a whole play about all this, and it might stand with the very best as an object lesson for everyone in the audience: all of us fragile mortals.

~ Bill Ryan, a Guardian reader from Ecuador.

[Foxie Loxie]

"Say it ain't so, Joe!" (Good old Gary Cooper movie) Sports in general do seem to be a kind of "distraction" to take us out of the everyday, ho-hum existence most of us lead. I always look forward to the College Football Season, myself. Here we have Jerry Sandusky & I still feel bad about Joe Paterno being sullied because of someone else's behavior.

The same "cheater" analogy can be drawn in the realm of politics. There are some of us in the U.S. hoping our Big Time Cheaters will be given their comupence; they have been able to "get away with it" for so many years they no longer seem to live in "reality"....all that matters is how much they can "get away with". I'm sure we each have had personal experience with such people.

I remember, when I was younger & into my adult years I always thought "older" people would have "the answers", just because they had lived longer. But we are each at a different phase of development. The name Tiger Woods comes to mind in this vein of thought. A Sense of Entitlement seems to creep in when one is given such public adoration...The Rules no longer apply to us if we're "famous"!!

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Good piece Bill, I heartily applaud it, although I do have to wonder what part actual management played in this, namely Lehmann, and Saker the bowling coach. I find it highly unlikely that they are guiltless, that they knew nothing about the plan to meddle with the ball. Surely nothing goes on in the field of play that they are not aware of. Have they even come forward to speak to the press yet? I've not seen a word.

[Kryztian]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
I submitted this to the Guardian newspaper, which was inviting comments from the public.

Bill your comments are poetic, insightful, and yet succinct, the type of material that the Guardian just might run.

Of course, once you become a published Guardian writer, you could then approach them with a front page tabloid story on the Anglo Saxon Mission or the Charles interview a/k/a Rulers of the World. Do you think they might go for that???

[Mike]

Right, how often do we hear about people who meet their heroes and walk away disappointed?

And of course they're disappointed, because they've assigned these people characteristics and expectations that they couldn't possibly live up to.

The men who cheated in cricket are clear examples of moral failure, but here I'm talking about people we think of as heroes who live pretty exemplary lives, but still disappoint a certain group of people. Maybe it shouldn't, but this still amazes me.

[Ewan]

(maybe?)

It takes a remarkable human being, I feel, to have developed a sound and decent set of morals by the mid-twenties. But then again I am only speaking from my own perspective, at that age I was as liable to make the wrong decision as the right and morals never really came into it. I was in my mid 30's before I began to get the idea it was actually important. Now, thankfully, for me it is cast in stone. I don't really know how that happened, I can't think of any single defining moment - but I basically didn't mature until I was about 35 years old.

It is a poisonous world we live in and the temptations are many. At the age of 20 I had a crossroads moment that could have led to a life of crime, it was circumstance that prevented it rather than any thought on my part. Or was it? 20 something years later to have a thought break into your head that wasn't your own, well that was certainly a sobering moment that made you ponder life in its entirety.

[Cardillac]

@Bill and all other readers

since when has cheating at/manipulation of anything ever been new?- cheating/manipulation has been amongst us since air-

if one has read Cathy O'Brien's "Trance Formation of America" all sports events are rigged (gosh!)- but I think this isn't anything new-

even tennis star Andy Murray (sp.?) publically admitted (and even named names) of how certain tennis aces were bribed big-time (mafia betting) to lose certain matches-

and cheating is new?

Larry

[Nasu]

It's a shame for those two and Oz, it will linger in doubts, jibes, sarcasm, stand-up comedy and ill will and fights in pubs and bars for years to come. The fact that it was set up across the whole management team - so called, makes it more shocking and I think compounds the cheat. The side fact that it was also so poorly executed is neither here nor there. For me the real sadness of this cheat is against it being team wide for Oz's finest, so called, so that makes one wonder how many times they got away with this elsewhere before? I'm sure losing sides are re examining footage of their plays as we type...

Of course like all first time offenders when caught they said that they promise it was their first time and they won't ever do it again. It will be a long while before Oz live this one down. When was "picking" abolished anyway? I want to say it was the late 1890's. They need to spring clean their pavilion if they want to be trusted again internationally, this sort of behavior is certainly not cricket..x... N

[Bill Ryan]

For anyone who may be interested: (and the archetypal lessons from all this are escalating )

There was an eagerly-awaited press conference about the entire affair a few hours ago, which was unbelievably badly conducted, left many heads shaking, and has added fuel to the raging fires.

The CEO of Cricket Australia, facing the press and seeming himself like a guilty man, refused three times (like Peter in the Garden) to state explicitly that the team had cheated, and looked even more uncomfortable than poor Sheriff Joe Lombardo in Las Vegas.

There are now claims this is the Aussie sports equivalent of Watergate. There were punishments for three of the players, but the team's coach, a widely disliked thug of a man, was let off scot-free. What did he know, and when did he know it? Are we now seeing a hamfisted coverup by the administrators of the sport? What action might the Aussie Prime Minister now take?

Again, without going into all the fine details of the affair, the interesting lesson I can see from all of this is how utterly important it is to demonstrate strong, decisive, swift, transparent leadership following the revealed failings of others.

When a community (or a nation) DEMANDS decisions and justice, and isn't given that, then they can get VERY angry indeed. This is all a kind of microcosmic case study (though don't tell any Aussie this is minor!!) of many, many really serious issues in the world today.

[Ewan]

Posted by Nasu (here)
this sort of behavior is certainly not cricket

[Bill Ryan]

A few extracts from this thoughtful piece in the Sydney Morning Herald.

~~~

History was guiding Smith to the place reserved not only for revered Australian captains but master batsmen. To see him collapse on that road is a seminar in fallibility.

Wrapped inside Smith's cheating in South Africa is personal disgrace, a public crucifixion and a mystery about human psychology. What makes people risk everything when they have already won life's lottery? What disconnect stops them seeing the firepit they are walking towards?

These are eternal questions, for all living souls, not just cricket captains too deluded to see that using improvised sandpaper to change a ball under the gaze of HD cameras was bound to be spotted, and then jumped on as a crime against the Australian homeland.

The cycle we are in is: detection, punishment, fallout. And it is the fallout that is most complex, because it places Smith at the old crossroads between ignominy and salvation.

He has no way of knowing which way the forgiveness bit will go. His sentence will end, he will return to his business, and he will doubtless construct a PR strategy that gives him the best chance of getting on with his job in something approaching peace.

But you would not fancy his chances of escaping the rolling vengeance and ridicule that accompany such acts; he has no control over the society and culture that may mark him out as a villain unfit for cricket's pantheon.

Wherever you stand on this, the possibility that Smith will always be a pariah - for the orchestrated and craven nature of the offence, as much as the transgression itself - is one full of pathos and waste.

He was being offered a double bounty of towering scores with the bat and a place at the head of Australian cricket. Instead, his downfall has become almost a parody of what happens to icons when they lose contact with reality. Smith has disappeared from WeetBix cereal boxes. No longer is his the face that launches Australia's day.

Many will not care, but he must be in turmoil. Hell must be raging through his soul. He has to live with the knowledge that he gambled everything he has worked for.

People in professional sport are often incapable of seeing beyond actions to consequences. When Smith needed someone to tell him that ball-tampering might destroy him, no one was there, so he ploughed on to this excruciating outcome.

Australia's players failed the game, but they also failed each other.

Their minds were not open to what would happen to the perpetrators if the plot went wrong. This blindness is common in sport, and in cheating. The world's best batsman got greedy. The small potential gains from that are eclipsed by egregious losses.

[Daozen]

My Dad's hero was Geoffery Boycott when I was younger. He was really into cricket, and played on the work sports team. When I got to Bali I was sick for 2-3 days, so I spent 48 hours reading an Ian Botham biography. That was weird. Sitting in a thatched tropical compund reading about an ex-cricketer.

Regarding sports in general, I hated team sport when I was a kid, cos I didn't like physical contact with other guys. Like Rugby. Why would anyone want to spend two hours running after and groping other men? I like those guys that do the Hakka at the start of NZ Rugby matches. They are awe-inspiring, beasts of men. Apart from that, Rugby just looks like a giant version of kiss-chase. I played it once in school. It was even worse than football. Someone threw the ball at me. Because I had the ball, 5 boys started running towards me with their arms outstretched. I don't need that. So I threw the ball at someone else, and they started chasing him.

Then Jarvis Cocker and Brett Anderson came along and made it OK not to like football.

The only sport I ever liked was mountain biking. I think it's good that there's a culture of weekend sport and exercise down under. It'll keep people fit and healthy into middle age, which is something the West sorely needs. Sport at the weekend is awesome. OTOH, hero worship and listening to people droning on about sports strategy over beers for hours is painful. Especially American Football, Football and Baseball. I always stayed out of sports conversations cos I liked guitars. Growing up in England in the 80s not liking football is weird. There were only about 5-10% of us in any class who didn't like it. I used to work in factories in the summer, and I used to dread the "Who do you support mate?" question. Hahaha.

Look at the beer-gut pundits out there who can talk about the NFL + premier league for hours, but can't do one pushup. Faux-masculinity.

Sport can be a good thing. It's better that kids grow up idolizing footballers than dissolute celebs. Apart from the occasionaly drug scandal, most footballers are relatively clean living. Sport should be played, not watched. Alex Jones is right, sport has been used to hijack men's strategic intelligence by making them focus on inane nonsense.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

So it now seems that David Warner was the chief instigator of the plan to "artificially alter the condition of the ball", or in normal English – which escaped the vocabulary of Cricket Australia – "cheat". Warner is a brilliant batsman, but even some of his own teammates likened him to a thug. He's already been fined this series for an altercation with SA keeper Quinton de cock. Now he faces a one-year ban, and to be honest, I think he got off light.

It's interesting that Smith may not have played a direct part in all this, but he knew about Warner's plan (in the dressing room), heard the plan being discussed, and then walked away saying he "didn't want to know". That's not really excusable. If, as a captain, he becomes aware of cheating by the players on his team, he is, in my opinion, passively endorsing that cheating by overlooking it. He's also banned for a year, and I think deservedly so.

[Bill Ryan]

One of the delights of being a cricket follower in the Americas is that one wakes up in times like this to see a deluge of more news articles (and outrage!) from England, India, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

I'm interested in the sport, and of course I absolutely know this is micro-trivial compared with many ultra-serious current world events.

But for me the real interest is the VERY VERY deep human archetype that's on full display here.

The truth is now coming out... just like Watergate.

There are four main characters in the drama:

1. The coach (Lehmann, an ugly thug) — who like Richard Nixon, denies all knowledge.
2. The captain (Smith, the fallen golden hero, and a supreme talent) — who knew the plot, but did NOT prevent it.
3. The vice captain (Warner, another thug, who it's now revealed masterminded the entire thing) — who coached the patsy how to cheat.
4. The patsy (Bancroft, who was caught) — the gullible rookie, but still a grown man who never said NO.

I wonder how many times all this has happened in history and beyond. Parents, teach your sport-loving children.

The story's still not over. The Watergate analogy holds, with MANY experienced ex-players insisting that the coach MUST have known. As with Nixon, the interrogation lamp has now moved to him.

***

It's also fascinating to watch public opinion veer and wheel like a huge flock of birds.

• There's now growing sympathy for the patsy and the fallen hero.
• There's NO sympathy at all for the two thugs.
• The Indian media is talking a lot about karma.

And for anyone of biblical bent reading this, this is of course ALL about temptation. As I wrote above, what makes people risk everything when they've already won life's lottery?

Maybe the Devil also follows cricket.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Yes, there are so many interesting (human) sides to this drama. And implications.

I watched Smith express his profound sorrow for his part in the affair, but I wonder if it was rooted more in self-pity, because he and his players were caught red-handed. If he felt bad about cheating at all, as per what a healthy conscience should dictate, then he wouldn't have cheated in the first place. Would he? After all, he knows the laws of Cricket.

I think he and Warner etc did it because they arrogantly thought they could win an advantage in the game and get away with it. Laws be damned. And this begs the question: have they done this before, in previously series? I think many cricket fans would like to know.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Star Mariner (here)
have they done this before, in previously series? I think many cricket fans would like to know.

Of course! Warner (the thug) was teaching Bancroft (the patsy) how to do it. Think about that just for a moment.

[Bluegreen]

Lots of things this American doesn't understand here thank you for posting
USA version:

Game Plan


Result

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Star Mariner (here)
have they done this before, in previously series? I think many cricket fans would like to know.

Of course! Warner (the thug) was teaching Bancroft (the patsy) how to do it. Think about that just for a moment.

I agree, that's a good point! You don't 'teach' something unless you already know aaaall about it.

Their denial just doesn't wash. I was doubtful before, and now I'm sure. It's a lie.

I'm hoping some sleuth or other with a ton of time on his hands will pour through hours of footage from previous tests, looking for tell-tale signs of tampering. Then again, I don't know to what end. Apparently, the ICC have a kind of statute of limitations in place, lasting for only 18 hours (after a match ends), when 'evidence' of wrong-doing, foul-play etc, can be taken into consideration. Even if evidence is found after that time, it can't be acted on.

The court of public opinion is of course very different. This story may run and run.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Call me a cynic, but I also noticed that the one-year ban Cricket Australia dished out arguably to their two best players, expires juuuust in time for both to be eligible for the Ashes series next summer.