its kind of bizzare isn't it. Smith will be welcomed back with open arms, he has been getting 2000-3000 people showing up to grade matches to watch him play. Not sure about Warner but he'll let his bat do the talking - his first ton back he'll be leaping into the air and soaking in the applause.
Cultural review of Australian cricket.
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its kind of bizzare isn't it. Smith will be welcomed back with open arms, he has been getting 2000-3000 people showing up to grade matches to watch him play. Not sure about Warner but he'll let his bat do the talking - his first ton back he'll be leaping into the air and soaking in the applause.
Phone hook up seemed pretty pissweak to me as well; especially in the light of the perception - as you state.
Even though i didn't agree with the bans i was pretty sure they would stay as is, however the half arsed nature of this appeal just seems like it will deepen the divide between the players union and CA, I really don't believe CA have any intention of trying to change their ways they sacked a few people and will duck and cover for a while and pray the team don't get spanked at home but they won't try and make things right with the union or move their focus away from maximizing profit no matter the cost to the sport itself.
Having spent alot of time on conference calls, any call above 3-4 people being able to talk is generally a cluster unless there is a pre-arranged agenda with speakers. That they seem to think it was plausible there was robust discussion between 6-7 people all over the phone tells me how low regard they appear to hold the public in.
He was captain, had opportunity to stop it, and didnt. Not captain material
Anyone who makes a Test 100 for Australia can do whatever they like.
I'm comfortable with the decision. I just hope CA doesn't expect other cricket nations to follow suit when (not if) their players are caught ball tampering because it's not going to happen. Something for CA to consider for the future.
Of course the other nations won't follow suit. That would be pretty dumb of them.
The next ball tampering incident involving mints or digging fingers into the ball will be completely downplayed because it didn't involve sandpaper, which was an extreme and isolated case. The sandpaper was one of the main reasons some people were calling for unseen bans wasn't it? The people who were trying to justify long bans were the same ones who said you couldn't compare other ball tampering incidents to the sandpaper one because of how extreme it was. So do you really think a cricket board is going to give a year ban to someone rubbing mints on the ball? A fine at best if they even admit it in the first place. Anyone who thought this would set some kind of standard to the Cricket world is as dumb as they get.
The next ball tampering incident involving mints or digging fingers into the ball will be completely downplayed because it didn't involve sandpaper, which was an extreme and isolated case. The sandpaper was one of the main reasons some people were calling for unseen bans wasn't it? The people who were trying to justify long bans were the same ones who said you couldn't compare other ball tampering incidents to the sandpaper one because of how extreme it was. So do you really think a cricket board is going to give a year ban to someone rubbing mints on the ball? A fine at best if they even admit it in the first place. Anyone who thought this would set some kind of standard to the Cricket world is as dumb as they get.
twotooto
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I could not give the slightest * that other countries don't, or won't, come down as hard on their players when they got/get caught ball tampering.
Are we seriously going to use the defence that "well the others get away with it so should we"? What an absolute load of horseshit.
They flat out cheated. One year ban is fair. I was pleased to see that the bans were upheld. Any softening would have made a mockery of the whole process. Thank * CA didn't fold. When the inevitable happens and other teams start ball tampering, we have a solid base from which to demand suitable action. We have shown that we are prepared to walk our talk. No one can say we don't have any skin in the game.
As the saying goes "the fish rots at the head". In the past month there's been some key resignations/removals from a couple of 'rotten fish heads'. Good. This whole saga is a line in the sand moment.
Right now Australian cricket is in a diabolical state. It's copped some massive hits but it's 'the recession we had to have'. It was limping along for a while, long before the SA disaster. This ball tampering was just the final straw. The culture, led by that muppet Warner - and enabled by Lehmann and Smith - was shithouse and frankly, it was starting to get embarrassing.
So now, with a new coach, new management and a reformed culture, there is a chance to lay some rock solid foundations and from that base, we can move forward. I have faith that this will happen. CA obviously want to see bums on seats but if they are serious about restructuring then they, we, all of us, need to be patient here. It's not going to happen over night. Big picture, get it right early and the rewards will come. Let's not kill the goose for a couple of golden eggs and some instant gratification.
Are we seriously going to use the defence that "well the others get away with it so should we"? What an absolute load of horseshit.
They flat out cheated. One year ban is fair. I was pleased to see that the bans were upheld. Any softening would have made a mockery of the whole process. Thank * CA didn't fold. When the inevitable happens and other teams start ball tampering, we have a solid base from which to demand suitable action. We have shown that we are prepared to walk our talk. No one can say we don't have any skin in the game.
As the saying goes "the fish rots at the head". In the past month there's been some key resignations/removals from a couple of 'rotten fish heads'. Good. This whole saga is a line in the sand moment.
Right now Australian cricket is in a diabolical state. It's copped some massive hits but it's 'the recession we had to have'. It was limping along for a while, long before the SA disaster. This ball tampering was just the final straw. The culture, led by that muppet Warner - and enabled by Lehmann and Smith - was shithouse and frankly, it was starting to get embarrassing.
So now, with a new coach, new management and a reformed culture, there is a chance to lay some rock solid foundations and from that base, we can move forward. I have faith that this will happen. CA obviously want to see bums on seats but if they are serious about restructuring then they, we, all of us, need to be patient here. It's not going to happen over night. Big picture, get it right early and the rewards will come. Let's not kill the goose for a couple of golden eggs and some instant gratification.
They. Will. Not. Care
I also thought you didn't care what other nations did with their cheaters?
CA can't afford to be that patient. Every loss will turn more and more people off the sport. And you're kidding yourself if you think CA has seen the light.
If we are going to lose a whole year of a once in a generation batsmen so we can "reformed culture" then the results better come quickly. Most people are not that loyal when it comes to Cricket. It's been on the decline for decades now and the national team becoming soft losers isn't going to help that.
Anyone else think those topics are all related? Let's hope these changes are not like FIFA's 'reforms' with the current walking penis in charge as corrupt as his predecessor. In other words, not another Pat Howard and his reverse Midas touch.
As a kid, many years ago, I have vivid recollection of the Indians vigorously rubbing the new ball into the dirt to get it ready for the spinners. I have watched English pace men scratching at the ball with their finger nails to rough up one side of the ball, and one Ian Botham deliberately stomping on the ball with his spikes. We have seen various English captains rubbing the ball with soil, mints, etc, we've seen Faf, not only once but twice found guilty of ball tampering. All I want to know is, at what time did such a trivial offence in terms of punishment become crime of the century?
Gough
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My feeling is that bringing a foreign object like sandpaper onto the field to alter the condition of the ball is a stretch to far, I know that you could say the same of mints but they are a part of the game in the same way that a bit of zinc or sunscreen often finds it's way onto the ball, or dirt or spikes are used to scuff the ball up. That's where I would differentiate between Cape Town and what has happened in the past
I forgot to mention scratching the ball with bottle tops. That's happened in the past.
So as long as people don't temper the ball with sandpaper (how often does that even happen?) they will just get a slap on the wrist like old times. I mean non of those players in Adelaide Hawk's post used sandpaper as far as we know. What Du Plessis has done is no big deal, I mean he didn't use sandpaper did he?
Gough
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I hadn't forgotten that either but the point still stands, the use of something like sandpaper does tend to aggravate the charges. I also said earlier I wasn't averse to the time off for good behaviour idea about bringing them back early from suspension. At the end of the day, and it's CA so I'm not holding my breath, I hope we can learn from this. You get the feeling those glory years hid a multitude of sins.
twotooto
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No, I do care. But in terms of how other nations administer sanctions to cheaters and using that as a frame of reference for how we should punish our own team? No.
That doesn't mean I don't want to see them cop heavy whacks because I absolutely do - from both the national body of the team and also the ICC. I don't want to see cheating in the game in any way, shape or form at any level. It's pathetic.
As for us "losing a whole year of a once in a generation batsmen", well, yeah, maybe he should have thought about that before hatching a plan with ole Dave "Bob the Builder" Warner that involved doctoring a ball with sandpaper in the middle of a Test Match being broadcast live around the world. I mean, sandpaper? What in the actual *. It was a Test Match not the ******* set of Better Home and Gardens.
My point was those days didn't hide anything. Ball tampering took place out in the open and nobody remotely considered it a bad enough thing to even contemplate banning players for it. Maybe this is what people mean when they refer to Australia's "Holier than thou" attitude, in that we have decided to put a stop to ball tampering when other cricketing nations have failed to do so.
Far too much is being made of the fact sandpaper was used. Ball tampering of all kinds are contrary to the rules of cricket. Nowhere in that rule does it discriminate what method was being deployed. Ball tampering is ball tampering. Full stop.
If an aussie player got done this summer for using mints dirt or a zipper on the ball people would still want his head, they can tell themselves the sandpaper was the factor that made this this crime of the century but it wasn't, being Australian players in an environment where aussie sports fans feel they are morally superior to the lesser nations was still the key factor in all this.
I have seen it time and time on this forum people basically saying they expect cheating from other nations but not from proud AUSTRALIANS, what is that if not a sporting version of exceptionalism?
It has no basis in reality it's just delusion over your own ethical standards and achievements while judging those from other countries less harshly not because you feel they aren't wrong but because you feel they are fundamentally incapable of ever meeting the high standards your country sets.
I have seen it time and time on this forum people basically saying they expect cheating from other nations but not from proud AUSTRALIANS, what is that if not a sporting version of exceptionalism?
It has no basis in reality it's just delusion over your own ethical standards and achievements while judging those from other countries less harshly not because you feel they aren't wrong but because you feel they are fundamentally incapable of ever meeting the high standards your country sets.
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Zippers on whites.
Drugs Are Bad Mackay?
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Have heard a bunch of stories around first class cricket. No idea whether any of these are true.
Supposedly it's fairly common for players to have tape on their fingers. Underneath the tape is sandpaper. Doesn't get noticed if umpires check at the start of sessions and it's always the non-bowlers so they don't get checked anyway.
Over the course of the day they work apart the layers of tape wrapping leaving a section of exposed sandpaper. Which they then rub the ball with appearing to just be shining it normally.
Another is to stitch a section of sandpaper onto the inside of the top of their whites (around drawstring level). When shining the ball they then fold just the very top of their whites down exposing the strip of sandpaper. It appears they are just shining the ball normally against their whites.
The 'sun conscious' quicks load up on lip balm. Apparently more effective than sweat, zinc or sunscreen.
Supposedly it's fairly common for players to have tape on their fingers. Underneath the tape is sandpaper. Doesn't get noticed if umpires check at the start of sessions and it's always the non-bowlers so they don't get checked anyway.
Over the course of the day they work apart the layers of tape wrapping leaving a section of exposed sandpaper. Which they then rub the ball with appearing to just be shining it normally.
Another is to stitch a section of sandpaper onto the inside of the top of their whites (around drawstring level). When shining the ball they then fold just the very top of their whites down exposing the strip of sandpaper. It appears they are just shining the ball normally against their whites.
The 'sun conscious' quicks load up on lip balm. Apparently more effective than sweat, zinc or sunscreen.
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Very much related. Anyone catch the first part of '2 Nations, 1 Obsession'? Details the rivalry between Australia and India with tonight's second installment focussing on the Monkeygate saga between Symonds and Harbhajan. Alan Border apparently disgusted with CA's handling of the issue, essentially caving in to BCI after they threatened to go home after Harbhajan got 3 matches, but reduced on appeal. And CA's lack of support for Symonds. For anyone interested, second installment is on tonight Channel 501 at 8.30pm. Would be well worth a looksee.
Drugs Are Bad Mackay?
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That footage of the 1986 tied test was amazing
Greg Matthews 'interaction' with the crowd?!
Greg Matthews 'interaction' with the crowd?!
That incident rightly destroyed the relationship between the players and admin - and it still hasn’t recovered.
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The next incident after the sandpaper one has already occured. Dinesh Chandimal was banned for ball tampering against the West Indies in July. He was given a 1 test ban (and a further 2 test and 4 ODIs for refusing to take the field after he was charged). The Sri Lankan board fought to get Chandimal off the charge and their fans cried racism. The Australian cricket fan who was so outraged by cheating would not even know it has occured.
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