• Welcome to the Green and Gold Rugby forums. As you can see we've upgraded the forums to new software. Your old logon details should work, just click the 'Login' button in the top right.

Cricket Summer 2017/18

Status
Not open for further replies.

Sully

Tim Horan (67)
Staff member
Some on here are suggesting that we are at the same level of sledging as everyone else. This is clearly not true. We are the worst soedgers in the world and instigate much of it.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 

One eyed pirate

Ward Prentice (10)
You missed the presser where he admitted guilt?
He deserves punishment,most agree he should be allowed back in after doing some time.

He's not in the same boat as Warner,who will never play for Australia again.

Atherton putting dirt and later the ball to rough it up; philander repeatedly biting one side of the ball; Faf rubbing the ball on the zipper of his trousers; the use of Murray mints by Trescothick which are well known to add extra shine when rubbed with saliva; Faf using the same mint in South Africa’s tour of Australia; Bancroft rubbing the bowl with dirt and some finger tape. All are pre meditated events which occurred. The admission of guilt by Smith that he was also involved with Bancroft makes no difference. They are all proven events and all are as guilty as each other. All should be charged by the ICC and their respective cricket bodies and the punishments should be approx equal. Previous punishments vary but typically it’s loss of match fee and sometimes it’s also missing a match. It is not the captain getting sacked or players being banned. It’s a sad when various parts of Australian society talk about sackings and bans for life without 1) knowing yet what actually happened, and 2) without understanding the details and history of ball tampering and previous penalties.
I teach my kids to come clean when they mess up. Are we going to come down harder on the kid that comes clean vs the kids that also messes up but doesn’t admit guilt?
Overnight, ex England captain Vaughan has said that he thinks that every team he was involved with over 17 years had been involved with was involved in some sort of ball tampering. Yesterday, Chris Lynn said that probably every professional player has been involved in ball tampering of some sort during their careers. Absolutely charge them but this should not turn into an uneducated witch hunt.
 

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
^^^^^^ I'd suggest that this is the first incident involving a foreign object since ICC started taking the issue seriously and involves a greater degree of premeditation & collusion than the others you cite. In terms of penalty, ICC has their's which many will think far too lenient, CA also has to take into account the damage done to their reputation when considering what additional sanction they impose.
 

One eyed pirate

Ward Prentice (10)
An issue is that the ICC knows ball tampering occurs and has done little to stop it (acknowledging it's hard to stop) - it has never taken it seriously. Every instance I mentioned excluding Philander who used his teeth and nails to tear the leather! was using a 'foreign object', mints, hardened dirt balls, tape. In these previous instances, other team mates had to know what was going on, and in many it also involved the captain! Faf has been found guilty twice! So this instance is the same. Agree with reputational damage issue for CA but that is mostly because Australian society and media have an uneducated view and has a history of 'tall poppy syndrome". This is not drug taking or match fixing - those players and officials should be locked up and the key should be thrown away. This is the fine line between legally shining one side of the ball with saliva vs illegally scuffing the ball on the other side.
There is only one other country on earth where 'tall poppy syndrome" is worse than in Australia....
 

I like to watch

David Codey (61)
I agree that SA are being hypocritical taking the high moral ground with their current captain being convicted twice for the same offence.
And yeah,there's a bit of tall poppy going on here.Sledging seems to me to have morphed into nothing more than abuse,we've been bad winners and worse losers for quite a few years now.At least in past years, part of the sledging package was to never let the opposition know they've got under your skin.Now,we brag about being tools,and complain incessantly when it's returned.
The entitlement syndrome was never more evident when Watson (or maybe his brother?) pretty much told the Ozzie public,that he was beyond criticism,and he didn't need the grief that came with the baggy green,he was happy earning millions at IPL.
So yeah,I admit to a bit of schadenfreude in regards to Warner,who seems to embody all that's wrong in the teams culture.
 

Dismal Pillock

Simon Poidevin (60)
fbdavidw1_zpskyc3tlak.png
 

mark_s

Chilla Wilson (44)
I have spent a lot of time thinking about the recent events, particularly the ball tampering, and I keep coming back to the thought that I’m not as surprised as I should be.

I should preface this by saying I’m a cricket tragic. It is my favourable sport, and I attend the Sydney test every year. While I dreamt of playing for Australia, my actual career highlights are far more modest. The spirit was willing but the abilities were weak.

I should be shocked by the ball tampering revelations. But am I? Appalled, yes. Disappointed, incredibly. But shocked - no, or at least not enough and that is weighing heavily on my mind.

The ball tampering is forcing Australian cricket tragics like me to face the cold reality that our cricket teams behaviour has been an issue for a while. It’s not just this series, or even the last few years. It’s not just the ball tampering. In fact, the Bancroft dirty tape scratching isn’t the biggest issue - it’s the underlying win at all costs, whatever it takes, mentality that pervades the team which is causing me to think long and hard on this.

Previously, like Nathan Lyon, I wanted to believe that we pushed the line without crossing it. Like most in the Aus cricket community, I wanted to believe that, with sledging, we only gave as good as we got. Or maybe, like Steve Waugh, I wanted to believe that mental disintegration was in the spirit of the game. Threatening tail enders with broken arms, I think most of us knew that wasn’t ok even at the time. (Btw I did break my arm playing (low level) cricket as a kid from fending of repeated bouncers at my head!)

I see the comments from former Australian greats like Michael Clarke and Steve Waugh thus week and I wonder if their comments are more to protect their legacy rather than help us, the Aus cricketing nation, get to and address the underlying issues. Shame on them if that’s the case, and maybe that’s another insight into our cricketing culture.

It’s been a tough week but It feels like we are seeing the culmination of ~20 years of ever worsening behaviour by the Aus cricket team. I can understand why Steve Smith misjudged the reaction, he is comparing himself to his peers and predecessors, overseas competitors even. But he is using the wrong rulers to measure himself. Al Capone got done for tax evasion, maybe the ball tampering will prove to be our behavioural equivalent.

So who is to blame? Smith, Warner and Bancroft for sure. Penalise them severely, although Smith and Bancroft deserve a little credit for owning up to their actions. They could have denied it all and the Australian team might have taken a little bruise and just sailed on.

But more questions should be asked. Lehman can’t survive. Other players had to know or at least deliberately turned a blind eye. But what about James Sutherland? This isn’t the first time our cricket teams culture has been shown up, maybe we were all too keen to turn a blind eye. But Sutherland’s job is to have his eyes open on these issues, and I feel he has let me down as much as the others I have mentioned. It’s time to go James.
 

The torpedo

Peter Fenwicke (45)
Bit of interesting stuff here regarding Smith's involvement:

Jim Maxwell said:
My understanding of the conversation is that it went like this. They were about to go out after lunch, and Smith saw Bancroft and Warner in collusion.
He said "what are you blokes doing? I don't want to know what you're doing", and then he went out onto the field.
Unfortunately, he didn't realise exactly how dire the act they were about to perpetrate on the field was. The cameras got them and Smith is going to cop a ban.

 

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
Bit of interesting stuff here regarding Smith's involvement:

Definitely looks like CA and others involved are going to push the narrative that it wasn't really Smith's fault. Whether or not it is true is a another matter but I think most of the public are wanting it to be true (myself included) because everyone is so spellbound by the fact that Smith appears as though he could bridge the gap between Bradman and every other batsmen to play the game.

If Smith was a player of Michael Clarke's calibre (very good but not rewriting record books) then I don't think people would be so quick to to shift the blame from him. And of course, David Warner's infamy is providing enough motivation for many to overlook Smith's transgressions.
 

The torpedo

Peter Fenwicke (45)
Something interesting in that Geoff Lemon tweet chain:


Makes me wonder whether what involved was closer to the Australian team's view over the Saffas
 

One eyed pirate

Ward Prentice (10)
Smith and Warner goooone for 12 months, Bancroft 9.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricke...ans-bancroft-nine-months-20180328-p4z6s7.html

I wonder if other countries would be so stern. I doubt it very much.
Deny, deny, deny and like Faf, you lose some of your match fee and play on. Come clean and admit it and you get 12 months. No australian cricketer will ever tell the truth to CA ever again. But the ill informed Aust public expected something big to be done so CA had little choice. CA throwing their players under the bus (vs their international counterparts) will eventually back fire for CA and cricket in Australia.
 

The torpedo

Peter Fenwicke (45)
Anyway, back to the test.

If someone told you 5 months ago that Tim Paine would be test captain, you would be called a complete loony
 

Dan54

Tim Horan (67)
Deny, deny, deny and like Faf, you lose some of your match fee and play on. Come clean and admit it and you get 12 months. No australian cricketer will ever tell the truth to CA ever again. But the ill informed Aust public expected something big to be done so CA had little choice. CA throwing their players under the bus (vs their international counterparts) will eventually back fire for CA and cricket in Australia.

Um they didn't tell the truth apparently, appears it was sandpaper and not tape as they claimed. Look I think the punishment is hard, but I suspect the punishment is for all the crap that has happened over the last few years, and has built up to the stage that Aus cricket has to try and save the game! ie if this had been the only thing that had bought the Aus cricket teams name down it probably would of been a lot lighter, but let's be honest they are unfortunately rightly or wrongly seen around the world as an arrogant and unlikeable team and have been for a few years. Even Boof is saying hey maybe we need to be more like the NZ team, who I might add decided in a team meeting a few years back that they were not sure they liked to much where thy were heading and so decided they would kind of just reel in sledging etc and just remember that they played cricket for fun (as well as money no doubt). I not holding NZ team up as models, but Boof actually said it overnight, but you know what, when NZ team took that attitude I think you will find they became a bloody sight better team and players.....go figure!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top