The fallout of the Australian cricket ball-tampering scandal in South Africa has been swift and stunning.
Causing intense outrage in Australia, everyone from the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to ex-players to fans have lined up to give Steve Smith, Cameron Bancroft, David Warner and co a good kicking. Smith is likely to lose the captaincy and head coach Darren Lehmann could also be axed. Other cricket nations and supporters have also joined in the condemnation, with the cheating incident a story that has garnered immense media coverage around the world. The schadenfreude has been relentless.
Why has the scandal so touched a nerve around the globe? Ball-tampering is not exactly rare in international cricket. Everyone from Mike Atherton to Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Marcus Trescothick, Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Shahid Afridi to Faf du Plessis have been caught up in ball-tampering episodes and allegations in the past.
Part of the outrage has to do with sport’s key place in Australia’s national identity. It is often said that the two most important positions in Australian society are the Prime Minister and the Australian cricket captain. The baggy green cap is sacred. From Don Bradman to Keith Miller, Victor Trumper, Allan Border, Steve Waugh, Richie Benaud and the rest, cricketers have a special status in the big brown land. They are put on a pedestal and venerated.
They are supposed to be ambassadors for everything that is good and great about Australia, about Australia life and Australian values. It’s perhaps an impossible and unfair task, but that is the reality. And this blatant episode of organised cheating is seen as a betrayal that cuts deep to the core of how Australia wants to be seen by the rest of the world.
‘We play hard but fair’ is how Australians are brought up on sporting matters as they seek to ‘punch above their weight’ as a nation. Tough but honest is the mantra. Winning in sport, in the Olympic Games, in everything from rugby union to swimming, surfing tennis and the America’s Cup, is important and how the country has projected itself around the globe.
But the sad truth is often ‘hard but fair’ rings false. Australian athletes and teams don’t always live up to this lofty ideal. It is not only Chinese swimmers, Russian discus throwers or American cyclists that cheat, but over the years Aussies too. Stuart O’Grady, the Essendon AFL team, the Cronulla Sharks rugby league side, Dean Capobianco, Carol Gaudie, Nathan Baggaley – the list goes on.
Despite the myth that some want to peddle, Australian sportsmen and women are not whiter than white. They are not perfect. They are like every other country’s athletes – they have their own cheats among them. They are human.
Added to the mix is a national cricket team that is disliked by the rest of the world, and indeed by many Australians too. For years they not just played to ‘the line’ but often well and truly over it, giving ‘the line’ a good kicking along the way. They have sledged and bullied to the nth degree and then cried foul when it has been returned by others. This hypocrisy, arrogance and ‘holier than thou’ attitude has unsurprisingly won them few friends.
The whole third Test ball-tampering episode should be a wake-up call to all of Australian sport.
