How the Aussies react to Smithgate
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What was David Warner's involvement in the episode that led to the sudden downfall in Australia cricket - AFP
Two weeks and two Test matches lost, the Australians are still shell-shocked by their cricket shame and whenever I speak to an Australian reporter invariably and coyly they would slide down and ask “Chum! What do you think about the cricket business in Australia?”
The Royalty special: The Commonwealth Games gives us a timely reminder. It narrates the forgettable story about under whose rule the ‘empire sans a sunset’ hailed. Right now it is blooming into full force in spite of the annoying persistent drizzle that is besetting the Gold Coast, as the mega island nation is definitely reeling under its cricket impact.
In spite of his early tribulations with a drug implication, Australia’s spin great Shane Warne is an angry man with this latest development in Test cricket.
“Australia have a lot of questions to answer and I believe heads must roll on and off the field,” Australia’s all-time leading test wicket taker wrote on his personal Instagram page, following their defeat in the fourth Test. “We need new people who are passionate about the game.”
Warne has been linked to the Australian coaching role to be vacated by departing Darren Lehmann, but is one of several ex-players whose name has been mentioned. According to Warne, no one should be spared following the South Africa debacle. Australia’s series loss was their first in South Africa since the Proteas’ re-admission into test cricket after the end of apartheid.
Besides Warne, former Australian fast bowler Jason Gillespie and the Australian great Rickey Ponting should vie for the job, according the Brisbane daily, the Courier Mail.
At the same time I had the opportunity to discuss the implications of the ‘Smithgate’ and its ramifications with fellow journalist Mark Pearson, a professor of Journalism and Social Media at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Queensland.
Pearson made it clear that journalists cannot take sides and their impartiality is paramount.
Pearson pointed out that if anyone has faulted, they must be held responsible for their actions. He did not agree with the attempts to go soft on the already imposed action by Cricket Australia.
However, while travelling back to my abode, I befriended a huge man who looked imposing and strong as seen in every ounce of his torso. He introduced himself to me as Peter (honestly I could not got get his surname — may be due to his Aussie accent). He looked big alright, but his opinion was straightforward.
With a very frank gesture he explained, “Now; you get Steven Smith, the captain; what did he do? He was honest enough to admit that there was something wrong. Other than that, he was not physically involved with the incident.
“Then this fellow Warner, what did he do? May be he planned it, but, was he physically involved? No.
“Then this young block Bancroft — as young as he was; he is the one behind all that mischief. But, he was the one who gets the most lenient sentence of all. Do you think you can agree with that decision?” (To be honest even if I did not think so; I do not want to disagree with a man of that stature).
Then he thought for a while. Then he resumed the conversation. “I hear they are trying to have another hearing on the matter. I think this time our cricket guys should set Smith and Warner free — they were not the ones who peeled off the cricket ball. This Bancroft guy should be given a stiffer sentence — maybe he should be banned for life. He is the one who did it and he should be held responsible for what he did.”
Even if I disagree with him, his was an honest opinion from a cricket lover from the street.
However, in Brisbane, while talking to Sri Lankans involved with the games, most of them think that the Australian cricketers deserve everything that they get in return.
One Lankan cricket enthusiast opined, “What about all those Test matches that they won through dishonest cricket? How many former English cricketers think that the last Ashes debacle against them was a direct result of ball tampering? They feel that is why the cricket insiders got to the job of following the ball on video while the Australians were fielding during the third Test match.”
They are of the view that the Australians always used even other means of unsettling their opponents to get a psychological advantage. “First it was the Muralitharan episode, which unsettled the cricketing world. But, what happened? The Australians started the joke, but, finally the joke was on them. Both umpires who were involved with the incidents — Darrell Hair and Ross Emerson — finished their span behind the stumps ingloriously, while Muralitharan ended up as the highest Test wicket taker in history.”
Now when the seats are getting too hot for their backs, the Aussies are even talking about the ill effects of sledging. Why hadn’t they tried to curb it before, so that the game could have stood out as the proverbial ‘gentleman’s game’?
Yet, for all, time and again, back home we feel even Sri Lanka cricket gets coy about the straight line in their dealings, but, up to now besides the last ball no-ball delivered by off spinner Suraj Randiv — prompted by T.M. Dilshan during an ODI at home against the Indians, nothing major has sparked off an international crisis.
Yet, on the horizon there are spooky tales about the coming of the ICC bogey man called the ‘Anti-corruption sleuth’. Even the Australian cricketers were on top of the world till the proof of their folly was proven in public. Beware; one dishonest step may wash away a lifetime’s castle in a tide of shame.