Cricket Australia Embody “It’s Just Not Cricket”

Cricket was to many the ultimate game. It was a reflection on so many facets of life. It could be glorious and majestic, as well as unfair and at times downright frustrating.

Sadly, and regrettably the game has become a business now. For some it is a livelihood. Even players who will never reach first class status are happy to take money for playing a game that they should simply be enjoying.

Whereas all levels of cricket used to receive some form of coverage, now the emphasis is almost solely on those at the top, those to whom the sport is a livelihood and a business. Maybe that is why so much joy is missing.

No longer are games talked about with misty-eyed reminiscence, for today there are too many games and too much politics. The essence of the enjoyment and wonder that the game provided has, as many predicted it would, ebbed away.

There is too much seriousness, too much sensationalism, around what is essentially a battle between bat and ball that has endured for centuries in its simplicity.

Supposedly players and spectators alike are no longer happy to sit in shade or sun and quietly watch for hours that tussle for supremacy. No longer do they rejoice as fans of old did in the clink of the stumps being hit and the bails tumbling to the ground, or that unmistakable crack as the ball cannoned off the meat of the bat – no longer relevant either – and skimming across the finely cut grass, as fielders tuck in behind it in a race to the boundary that they eventually they concede is futile.

The game has lost that simplicity, as money, egos, and survival have taken precedence. They have pushed aside the morality that the game stood for. There was a reason the phrase “It isn’t cricket” became a part of everyday speech.

Over the centuries that the game has been played there have always been rascals. Players who tried to cheat, players who took bets on the game; that was how the players of yesteryear were paid for, playing for part of the proceeds of betting.

The game has survived corruption in the past, legal and political challenges but one fears that the regularity of such events of late are testing the game’s spinal fortitude, and also that of its followers.

Unfortunately for Australian fans there has been a catalogue of events that have exposed the shortcomings of those charged with protecting the integrity of the sport in Australia.

There were the “weather reports” given by Shane Warne and Mark Waugh. The actual information was given to ‘John the Bookmaker’ in 1994-95 but the matter was initially covered up by the Australian Cricket Board (ACB), which decided that it was sufficient to privately fine the players. The news of this only broke in 1998, and both players and the Australian Cricket Board were condemned by the press and Australians for their handling of the episode.

It transpired that the CEO Graham Halbish and the chairman of the ACB Alan Crompton, had obtained written statements from the pair, and acted as judge and jury and handed down fines of AUD$10,000 and AUD $8,000 to Warne and Waugh respectively; at the time, these were the highest fines ever imposed on Australian cricketers. The Board of the ACB were advised of this matter at the end of their next meeting.

The minutes read:

“The chairman and chief executive officer reported on a further matter that had come to their attention and been dealt with by them in a manner considered appropriate. The actions of the chairman and the chief executive were approved by the directors present. It was resolved that details should be provided to ICC on a private and confidential basis.”

Warne and Waugh were allowed to continue playing, as both were key players within the Australian team. It is worth remembering that this matter came just before the revelations that South African captain Hansie Cronje had taken bribes and was subsequently banned for life.  Cronje named Salim Malik (Pakistan), Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja (both India) in the inquiry and as a result Jadeja was banned for four years, while the other two were banned from all cricket.

Question marks still hang over the handling of this issue and the players involvement. Had the matter not been uncovered by the media, would the public ever have found out?

There were other issues that beset Australian cricket in the next couple of decades but none rocked the game as much as “Sandpapergate” in 2018. Here the Australian team were seen to be using sandpaper taken out onto the field of play to help scuff up one side of the ball.

The man caught on camera was Cameron Bancroft, and he was banned for nine months. Vice-Captain David Warner was seen as being a key player in the incident and he along with Captain Steve Smith were banned for 12 months, and Smith lost the captaincy. Warner was advised that he “will not be considered for team leadership positions ever again.”

Smith was found to have known of the plan but failed to take steps to prevent it, and the public were told that he “will not be considered for team leadership positions until a minimum of 12 months after the conclusion of (his suspension) from international and domestic cricket. Any consideration of future leadership would be conditional on acceptance by fans and the public, form and authority among the playing group.”

He was returned to the vice-captaincy this Summer against England, and ended up as captain when Pat Cummins was unable to play due to close contact with a Covid case. Whether the fans and the public accepted this, is still open to debate.

To many the outcome of this investigation once again was far from clear, and appeared to be Cricket Australia trying to minimise the fall-out from a blatant act of cheating.

While coach Darren Lehmann was cleared by the investigation of any wrongdoing or involvement in the scandal, and having said that he would not resign he ultimately did, after the conclusion of the fourth Test in Johannesburg. There are still many cricket fans who question the findings, and wonder how the coach could not have known.

What is probably more galling to any cricket lover in Australia or anywhere in the world were the claims by other team mates, especially the bowlers that they did not know that the ball was being tampered with. Former captain Michael Clarke was one of the few to raise this point publicly when he said “If you are playing sport at the highest level you know your tools that good it’s not funny. Can you imagine that ball being thrown back to the bowler and the bowler not knowing about it? Please.” He went on to say, “The problem Cricket Australia has is the fact they’ve tried to sweep it under the carpet and not come out and tell the full story.”

He is right. The real problem is that the review and the punishments were handed down by Cricket Australia. Why was there no investigation by the sports worldwide Governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC)? Why did they not hand down a sanction on the Australian cricket team and their administration? Would lesser nations have avoided such sanctions?

All that the Cricketing World heard from the ICC was that penalties were raised against Bancroft and Smith on the basis of post-match charges levelled by the designated umpiring chief. ‘Attempting to alter the condition of the ball’ brought Bancroft a Level 2 charge of three demerit points and 75% loss of his match fee. The more serious charge meted to Smith, of conducing himself as a Test captain in a way ‘contrary to the spirit of the game’, brought a proposed suspension from the next Test match, four demerit points being added to his record and a 100% loss of match fee.

Cricket Australia, as they did with Shane Warne and Mark Waugh looked to act swiftly and to some harshly, to avoid international sanctions from the ICC. It had worked before, and it worked again.

If the ICC truly cared about the “spirit of the game,” which regrettably seems to have died, they would have stepped in. The Australian players conspired to cheat, they carried out the tampering and worse still, attempted to hide it. At the end of the day the sanctions imposed on the players were not for ball tampering per se but rather for conduct contrary to the ‘spirit of cricket’ and for conduct which ‘brought the game into disrepute.’

One cannot help but feel as a cricket lover that had the ICC been the one to investigate and issue the punishments after “Sandpapergate” this would have played out very differently. Well, maybe not now that all the power at the ICC is held by England, India and Australia. Maybe that is why they didn’t step in?

Cricket Australia had to try and right the ship. Tim Paine was handed the captaincy on an interim basis for the remainder of the third test in South Africa, and then was officially appointed by the CEO of Cricket Australia James Sutherland once the Test match was over.

In May of 2018 Justin Langer was appointed the coach to try and restore some level of respect to the Australian team and that famous baggy green cap. Langer had done a remarkable job in Western Australia when he took over their state side at a time when it lacked discipline and was garnering more press for events off the field than on it. He was the perfect man for the job.

As he said in his statement when he was forced to resign as coach this week, “My life has been built on values of honesty, respect, trust, truth, and performance.” The same values that cricket used to stand for. One thing he can be sure of is he has left the Australian Cricket team in a far better place when he left than he found it. Hopefully fans across the world remember that.

Cricket Australia knew what they were getting when they appointed Langer as his reputation preceded him. Not only that, he had played Test cricket for them for 14 years and 105 Test matches. He had been assistant coach to the national team for three years. Yet despite him pulling them out of a very deep hole and restoring respect for the team, after over two decades of service Cricket Australia have it appears opted to pander to the players who let them down in South Africa, by losing their moral compass rather than stick with the coach.  

The way the events have played out and the fact that it was clear that there has been a witch-hunt to remove Langer for several months, one wonders who leaked the incriminating Tim Paine text messages to The Herald Sun and whether this was indeed part of the plan to remove the coach by the end of the Summer. The irony is the surfacing of Paine’s dick-pic from 2017 left Langer the one exposed. After all the Captain and coach were extremely loyal to each other, as they should be in any successful team.

The report into what happened in South African and who knew of the plan to cheat like so many internal reports in sport has been locked away in the vault at Cricket Australia, and will no doubt not see the light of day for many decades to come.

However, we were told snippets of information and now is a very important time to look back at the key conclusion of the report and that was that responsibility for what occurred during the Cape Town Test match lay not only with the players involved in the cheating, but with Cricket Australia for creating the ‘larger picture’, in other words the culture that had developed around Australian cricket in recent times. Has that changed?

It is interesting to ponder the term “it’s not Cricket” to some its outdated and no longer relevant for the game. Cricket no longer has the moral standards that it was perceived to have had. Yet the penetration of the game of cricket into the moral life of some of the countries where the game is played means that the phrase still has meaning and is upheld. For cricket, or those who play the game are still expected to be fair and honest.

The cricket writer JM Kilburn wrote in his book Overthrows published in 1975 “Cricket like other forms of sport has been challenged by thinking and behaviour that ‘isn’t cricket.’ In some aspects sport has conceded that foul play may be regarded as fair play.” How prophetic were those words?

If as happened, such behaviour goes unpunished, or it warrants a slap on the wrist and a private telling off, the game will always be in danger.

The ‘spirit of the game’ is today something very different to what it was. It is very different to what many cricket lovers perceive it to be. Today we hear phrases such as ‘harming the interests of the game’ or ‘bringing the game into disrepute.’

Anyone on the end of such an accusation will find themselves in hot water, for what they are really being accused of is causing reputational damage to ‘the brand.’ Damage to ‘the brand’ carries the risk of direct or indirect financial loss to the sport, and that is unforgiveable.

The West Indian Cricket writer CLR James wrote in his much heralded Beyond A Boundary, “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”

James was trying to highlight that to understand the game you cannot do so without referring to its social and cultural context. Which has with time evolved, and is maybe why the game finds itself where it is today.

Kilburn probably summed it up best when he wrote of cricket “It provides every reward in recreation, but the full rewards are available only from pleasant cricket – cricket without rancour, cricket without selfishness, cricket with purpose essentially in itself. Cricket can be played in this way from the school field and the village green to the Test match arena.”

Reading such words makes one understandably yearn for days gone by before cricket became a business and players became a brand.