Two matches. That’s the most any player has ever been banned for tampering with the ball.
Shahid Afridi, who was caught on live television biting the ball, and Shoaib Akhtar – both missed two limited overs games.
Today, Steve Smith and David Warner find themselves shunned from international cricket for one whole year because they conspired to tamper with the ball.
Two matches – one year. That in itself makes one thing very clear: This decision by Cricket Australia was not JUST about ball tampering. This isn’t only about how Steve Smith and his “leadership group” – of two – tried to alter the course of the game.
This is more about how the captain and vice-captain of Australia’s most loved sport let the fans down, and most of all, let the game down.
But then, one small question begs to be asked: Is it fair for national sentiment – outrage, rather – to somehow influence the sanctions on players, that by law had never exceeded two matches?
This, in fact, is the first time that a home board has ever punished players for their role in ball-tampering. Before this, as sanctions had been limited to what the ICC handed out, the story would end there.
This, in fact, is also the first time Australia is seeing their top players punished this harshly by their home board. Remember the ‘underarm’ controversy involving the Chappell brothers? Remember when Shane Warne and Mark Waugh were caught sharing team information with bookies? Do you remember any bans on them? No? Because there weren’t any.
All the immense anger and uproar could be due to the manner in which the players went about their plans of tampering with the ball. The planning at lunch. The tape. The recruiting of a junior player to carry out the task.
Information that none of us would have had, had Steve Smith not stepped up and made the confession, of his own volition. Remember, by the time he came for the press conference on Day 3 in Cape Town, Bancroft had already been pulled up by the ICC and fined for his actions. Smith had not been named. He wasn’t even in the picture! Instead he chose to sit in front of the media and take the blame, own up. He didn’t need to do that.
Even former cricketers and experts are now weighing in, with no one really being able to back the sanctions handed out by Cricket Australia.
Steve Smith could have been preparing for his stint in the IPL right now had he not chosen to be honest.
And for that, he has lost his baggy green for 12 whole months. The players will all miss the IPL though, with the league deciding to distance itself from yet another controversy. How Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad will now find last-minute replacements for their marquee players worth 12 crore remains to be seen over the next few weeks.
Apart from the bans, Smith and Bancroft will not be allowed to captain the team for the next two years. David Warner will never hold a leadership position in the team again after the board revealed that it was Warner who had come up with the plan to tamper in the first place.
The captain and vice-captain of the Australian national team will not play cricket for the next 12 months because they made one mistake. And because apparently, cricket doesn't forgive.
(Camera: Shiv Kumar Maurya, Edit: Sandeep Suman)
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