Saturday March 24, 2018 will be remembered as one of the most extraordinary days in the history of cricket. It was a day on which a serving captain, right in the midst of a Test match, addressed a press conference and admitted that he had cheated. Steve Smith called it the most embarrassing day for him and his team, though he would have been speaking for an entire nation, which not only plays its cricket hard, but also has a history of bad on-field behaviour that does no credit to the game.
Sledging is a term synonymous with Australians, a legacy no sporting nation can be proud of. What Smith and the actual perpetrator of the “crime”, Cameron Bancroft, did was to go one step further and plan an act to gain advantage that is banned by law. It is not that ball tampering is something new and may not be taking place even these days. It is just that in this age of camera scrutiny, it is almost impossible to not get caught. That is why what Smith and, as he puts it, the “leadership group” planned seems senseless and stupid. In India, when Smith was caught looking for instructions from the dressing room before deciding to seek a review of the umpire’s decision, he called it an act of “brain-fade” and was forgiven.
In South Africa, his player has been caught red-handed on camera, forcing a strong reaction from his own fraternity, particularly in Australia, that could jeopardize his playing career itself. That it was impossible for him to lead the side after Saturday’s violation was obvious and the Australian board was left with no choice but to remove him from his post midway in the match. This in itself is an ignominy no other captain has suffered in the history of the game.
Ball tampering is not new. When Pakistan’s supremely talented fast bowlers started reverse swinging the old ball from the seventies onwards, it was often said they were scuffing the ball using unfair means. In India it was common knowledge that many fast bowlers uses a bottle cap to tamper with the ball. This resulted in a law being framed that made tampering a punishable offence. Many players in the past have been penalised for ball tampering and Indians in particular will remember the 2001 Test series in South Africa where match referee Mike Denness charged Sachin Tendulkar with tampering. An outrage followed, with the Indian board accusing Denness of bias and the charge was finally withdrawn.
Reverse swing has now become a respectable weapon in the hands of a fast bowler, with players mastering the art of “tampering”, without using any extraneous element to do so. These days it is done by retaining the shine on one side of the ball, while letting it get roughed up on the other in the natural course of play.
It somehow defies common sense that Smith and his core group of planners sanctioned this ill-conceived “strategy” knowing full well they could be caught. That they still went ahead and executed this plan, either shows their reckless desperation or no fear of the law. In an already acrimonious series where the players of the teams have had a public spat, one player was banned for two Tests and then let off, this incident is another reminder that players and administrators need to introspect and do course correction.
Both Smith and David Warner, removed as captain and vice-captain, are captaining their respective sides in the Indian Premier League that follows this series. The IPL is already notorious for many wrongs, including an incident of a Test player (Harbhajan Singh) slapping another (S Sreesanth) in a fit of rage. The top most administrator of the country was removed by the court for shielding his son-in-law on “betting" allegations in the league and Delhi police charged a few players for being on the payrolls of bookies. Will these two now be removed as captains and a stricter code of conduct be followed or will commercial interests once again rule supreme?
These and more questions of rampant ill-tempered player behaviour and where to draw the line will continue to haunt the sport, which has suffered another body blow after the match-fixing saga almost two decades ago damaged its very foundations.