Steve Smith as Captain

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holybishop

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If that's the case, and Smith isn't the answer, you've got two choices -
*Pick a captain from the existing team, and I can't see any viable choices apart from Smith, or
*Pick a captain who isn't good enough to actually be in the team, which is hardly ideal
Cummins is the Vice Captain on paper and has the right to have first crack.
In the meantime blood Carey to take over if Cummins can't do it.
 

holybishop

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*Pick a captain who isn't good enough to actually be in the team, which is hardly ideal
George Bailey was initially picked as essentially a specialist captain. There's a spot at 5 up for grabs and Khawaja and Handscomb are options to come in, fill that role and captain the side.
 

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Plenty of players have ball tampered yes. But nothing to this degree, where it was systematically pre planned and a foreign object actually brought onto the field.

Really?

Cough lollies selected specifically to modify the ball; unheard of swing from some average bowlers won them that series.
Bottle caps.
Zippers on whites.

Turn it up.
 
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Plenty of players have ball tampered yes. But nothing to this degree, where it was systematically pre planned and a foreign object actually brought onto the field. The whole leadership team planned out the whole thing. Clearly wasnt the first time this group had cheated either, would be extremely naive to think otherwise.

Smith is an incredible cricketer but he wont ever captain his country again.
I don't know about that. If they had done it before, they wouldn't have gotten caught so easily. There are cameras everywhere at every ground, it simply isn't something you can get away with these days.

I don't see how it is any different to the Poms sucking on mints during the 2005 Ashes.

The carry on was over the top, particularly involving Smith.
 
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Really?

Cough lollies selected specifically to modify the ball; unheard of swing from some average bowlers won them that series.
Bottle caps.
Zippers on whites.

Turn it up.
It is staggering how much some want to blow that whole incident out of proportion to ridiculous levels and pretend like it hasn't happened elsewhere over the years.

Cricket is littered with examples.

In a bid to feel morally superior some of this country wanted to destroy Smith and co.
 

Browney2006

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I don't know about that. If they had done it before, they wouldn't have gotten caught so easily. There are cameras everywhere at every ground, it simply isn't something you can get away with these days.

I don't see how it is any different to the Poms sucking on mints during the 2005 Ashes.

The carry on was over the top, particularly involving Smith.
Are we just forgetting Bancroft putting sugar into his pocket before going out in the field in the ashes series prior to the South Africa series? Its amazing how Australia managed to produce reverse swing in that series out of nowhere and then magically lost it again post South Africa.

Not to mention Warner strapping and bandaiding his hands while in the field but then taking them off to bat. Conveniently he doesn't do this since being caught
 
Smith should be Captain.

Smith should never ever captain again.
It is staggering how much some want to blow that whole incident out of proportion to ridiculous levels and pretend like it hasn't happened elsewhere over the years.

Cricket is littered with examples.

In a bid to feel morally superior some of this country wanted to destroy Smith and co.

So your argument is everyone else cheats therefore we should? Gee great way to teach values to the leaders of tomorrow.
 

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George Bailey was initially picked as essentially a specialist captain. There's a spot at 5 up for grabs and Khawaja and Handscomb are options to come in, fill that role and captain the side.

Moses Enriques @ 5 it is then...

I am in the Smith camp. I get why some aren’t - it’s very hard to remove tar and feathers.
 
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Smith should never ever captain again.


So your argument is everyone else cheats therefore we should? Gee great way to teach values to the leaders of tomorrow.
No, I’m saying the whole thing was overblown, they deserved a slap on the wrist not a public bashing by so many Australians and year long bans like they had been part of some doping regime. It was a dumb thing and deserved some serious criticism directed at those involved. But the carry to this day is a joke. All because some Australians, the media and Cricket Australia couldn’t bare to accept that the Australian cricket team isn’t perfect.

I’ve already told you I do not care one bit about role model garbage in sports. I’m there to watch elite athletes excel. It’s a ridiculous thing, even more ridiculous these days when kids can log onto the internet and find out bad things about their so called role models in an instant.
 
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The Passenger

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Smith is an incredible cricketer but he wont ever captain his country again.

The thing is, tactically, he was rubbish, and his petulant displays from slip any time a player dropped a catch or even misfielded were hardly the stuff of stern leadership. Stern leadership is Allan Border looking Craig McDermott in the eye and telling him to pull his finger out or he is on the plane back to Australia (Ashes touring match 1993), not the Steve Smith version of pull your hat over your eyes then look like your about to cry or maybe start stamping on the ground like a toddler having a temper tantrum. He's a great number 4 batsmen - maybe even the best there has ever been. I think it just needs to be left like that. If there was someone that was entrenched in the team at the time, they would've been vice captain to Clarke and ultimately take over the role. But there wasn't, and those roles fell to Smith basically by default. The only other option was Warner :eek:.

Comparing him to Clarke who wasn't the most popular bloke going around in cricketing circles, but at least tactically he was bang on. One of the most innovative guys I've seen for his field placements and boy they came off a lot.
 
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NZ seems very keen in particular to throw a bit of mud, forgetting they were involved in probably the egregious case of ball tampering in 50 years.
I assume you are talking about Chris Pringle in Pakistan in about 1990?.

There are a couple of differences to the sandpaper stuff. It was done in the the third test of the series after they watched the pakistani's doing it in the first two tests.

They were also open about it after the match and didn't continue with it. (NZ's results in the 90's clearly show that as we were terrible most of the time).

Only a fool would believe that the Australians weren't using sandpaper for a while before getting caught. Unless someone talk we may never know.

This is the big problem with Smith imo, he is forever tarnished and if he gets made captain it will be an ongoing issue.
 

CheapCharlie

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It is staggering how much some want to blow that whole incident out of proportion to ridiculous levels and pretend like it hasn't happened elsewhere over the years.

Cricket is littered with examples.

In a bid to feel morally superior some of this country wanted to destroy Smith and co.

The issue was Australian players and media have felt morally superior to other countries, while engaging in dodgy behavior of their own.

Warner and Smith got the ban they deserved, a ban that any player from any country should get.

The defense of 'But other countries do it, so we should be able to do it too' doesn't make much sense
 
Feb 6, 2013
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The issue was Australian players and media have felt morally superior to other countries, while engaging in dodgy behavior of their own.

Warner and Smith got the ban they deserved, a ban that any player from any country should get.

The defense of 'But other countries do it, so we should be able to do it too' doesn't make much sense
Your strawman fantasy of Australia being morally superior to other countries is the only fuel for these screeds but words are wind. The poms are the moralisers in cricket and proven cheats.

Now if you were saying you personally believe the Australian side must be morally superior to the rest (and give your self righteous attitude I am sure you do) that would be fine, but to make it some big nationalistic point based on the 'vibe of the thing' is a joke.
 
Your strawman fantasy of Australia being morally superior to other countries is the only fuel for these screeds but words are wind. The poms are the moralisers in cricket and proven cheats.

Now if you were saying you personally believe the Australian side must be morally superior to the rest (and give your self righteous attitude I am sure you do) that would be fine, but to make it some big nationalistic point based on the 'vibe of the thing' is a joke.
As the dominant team in the world for so long we'd sort of taken upon ourselves as the arbitrator of where the line was. I don't think it was moral superiority it was that for so long we'd been fed the myth of the teak hard but fair Australian cricketer when it turned out not to be the case.
 
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As the dominant team in the world for so long we'd sort of taken upon ourselves as the arbitrator of where the line was. I don't think it was moral superiority it was that for so long we'd been fed the myth of the teak hard but fair Australian cricketer when it turned out not to be the case.
I think the fans did, and it was fed into a bit by people like John Howard who were trying to Americanize Aus culture, but I don't think the Australian cricketing establishment actually did though.

Illustrative example, Aus fans may have gone after Murali for chucking, but Aus spinner Bruce Yardley was one of the coaches who was working with him on his action.
 

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I assume you are talking about Chris Pringle in Pakistan in about 1990?.

There are a couple of differences to the sandpaper stuff. It was done in the the third test of the series after they watched the pakistani's doing it in the first two tests.

They were also open about it after the match and didn't continue with it. (NZ's results in the 90's clearly show that as we were terrible most of the time).

Only a fool would believe that the Australians weren't using sandpaper for a while before getting caught. Unless someone talk we may never know.

This is the big problem with Smith imo, he is forever tarnished and if he gets made captain it will be an ongoing issue.
Is this right? I was under the impression it didn't come out until Pringle wrote it in his autobiography after he retired and then Crowe started talking about it.

Using that same logic that they only did it because Pakistan did it, I'd say only a fool would think South Africa weren't ball tampering for much of their success given Faf Du Plessis x2 and Vernon Philander got done for it between 2013 and 2016. Philander's (which he admitted and pleaded guilty to) was in a match in Sri Lanka where Steyn got huge amounts of reverse swing which he seemed to quite often. Warner as far back as 2014 was suspicious of South Africa's treatment of the ball and therefore you could say he only did because he saw South Africa tampering using that logic.

It's a specious leap I'll admit but having watched cricket during that time I find it hard to believe ball tampering wasn't rife in world cricket. The swing numbers pre and post sandpaper for all nations tend to back me up as do Hasim Amla's quotes afterwards that said "it was a wake up call for all nations". Australia as always are just so stupid about how they went about it and turned it up to a million.
 

CheapCharlie

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Your strawman fantasy of Australia being morally superior to other countries is the only fuel for these screeds but words are wind. The poms are the moralisers in cricket and proven cheats.

Now if you were saying you personally believe the Australian side must be morally superior to the rest (and give your self righteous attitude I am sure you do) that would be fine, but to make it some big nationalistic point based on the 'vibe of the thing' is a joke.

The moral superiority coming from the Australian players and commentators has been around for a long time. Generally a superior and 'we know best' attitude was directed towards India, sri lanka, Pakistan, West indies

As India has risen in the game and now are the financial masters of Cricket, there has been some changing of attitudes within Australian cricket from current and former payers and media commentators.

Whether England are cheats have a superiority complex doesn't take away from the recent history of Australian teams and players.
 

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