No true cricket fan can be happy about the ball tampering incident and its effect on a series between the two top teams in Test cricket. Such meetings occur seldom and this incident has damaged the series beyond repair. On the fourth day at Newlands, a disheartened Aussie team collapsed for 107 to lose the Test by a whopping 322 runs. We can expect more of the same in the final test.
This is not to excuse the Australian team’s behavior. For years, decades even, they have bullied other teams with tactics that straddled the line and now, finally, they have crossed it. As I write, Smith and Warner have been forced to relinquish their positions as captain and vice-captain, Smith is out of the final test and Bancroft has received three demerit points. This is only the beginning and there is talk of Smith and Warner facing lifetime bans. Even otherwise, their reputations are in tatters and it is difficult to see them living this incident down.
These events have only underscored what I’ve always felt about Smith: a great batsman, perhaps the best in the world in Test cricket, but not a great captain and not a natural leader. Under pressure, he folds. I remember the incident in India when he was caught looking at the pavilion for advice on whether to protest an on-field call. It was not what I’d expect from the captain of the Baggy Green. At Newlands, it was bad to have Cameron Bancroft tamper with the ball but it was worse to pass it off as a collective decision by the team’s senior leadership. The “right” thing to do would have been to take full responsibility. Heaven knows how many more players will be tarred by this event. Smith, Warner and Bancroft are only the first casualties.
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that Darren Lehmann played no part in the incident. What the TV cameras captured seems to implicate Lehmann, no surprise considering his unsavory behavior in the past. Neither do I feel sorry for David Warner; I’m not sure what his involvement in this incident was but his past and recent history mark him as an explosion waiting to happen and a poor advertisement for Australian cricket. Whatever happens to him will be richly deserved, a result of his bad karma catching up with him. My sympathies are reserved for Bancroft, a newcomer still trying to cement his place in the team and too new to refuse his captain’s order. I even feel a little sorry for Smith for his precipitous fall from grace and likely the end of his cricketing career.
There are many aspects to this whole fiasco that are puzzling. Why did Smith and Co. try such a high risk – low reward maneuver ? Did they really think they could get away with it knowing full well that so many cameras were trained on them? Was it arrogance that led them to think so or was it a sign of their panic? Did they even stop to think of the consequences of getting caught? Even if they had succeeded in fixing the ball undetected, would the reverse swing they extracted from it been enough to skittle out the South African batsmen? And why was it so important to win this match and the series? This was not a World Cup final. Even had they lost this test and the series, it would have merely meant a drop in the world rankings… bad , yes, but not catastrophic. And , finally, as some have already commented… Was Smith’s contrition genuinely for his actions or was it for getting caught? We’ll never know. What is certain is that this series is as good as over and it is going to take a long time for Australian cricket to live this down.
P.S It will be interesting to note the behavior of Australian cricket spectators when next a visiting team plays Down Under.
Golden Ripples 
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