Ball tampering Saga

While it certainly is a dark day for cricket Australia followers the way Cricket Australia is handling the ball-tampering saga is exemplary. As soon as the news started making rounds past Australian players including Glichrist, Warne and Clarke, the Australian sports council, the prime minister have asked Steve Smith to step down. In the middle of the game Smith and Warner was stripped down of the captaincy and handed over to Tim Paine (I don't recall this ever happening in any previous game). Even though ICC has already handed Smith 1-test ban cricket Australia says they would hold an independent inquiry and decide on the sanctions, which by all means will be more harsh than the ICC. Based on my experience Smith and Warner will be stripped off leadership duties forever and if Lehman is involved it would be goodbye to his tenure.

One of the reasons cricket Australia is perusing this matter so hard is that while they have been accused of the past like other teams they were never found guilty to this extent. For cricket Australia protecting the integrity of the sport is lot beneficial in long run than looking for temporary gains by protecting their players.

This situation is slightly similar to Shane Warne's 2003 world cup doping ban. The test was carried by Cricket Australia and as soon as the results emerged they pulled Shane Warne, their trump card from South Africa. Any other board would have delayed the findings / go on a lengthy hearing process while letting the player play the world cup / simply ignore doing self tests and let ICC handle it, even for a lesser player, let alone the biggest weapon. Not for Australia.

In comparison Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Vernon Philander, Faf Du Plesis (twice), Mike Atherton, Marcus Trescothik, Shahid Afridi, Dasun Shanaka have all been caught of this offence and all home boards brushed the issue under the carpet. In Du Plesis case they said they need to be smarter with tampering the ball !!!

I think all other boards need to take a leaf out of the Cricket Australia book.

PS : There is something Sri Lanka can be proud of by the way BCCSL headed by Gamini Dissanayake handled the rebel South Africa tour in early 80s. While all other boards banned players for 2 or 3 years BCCSL banned them for 25 years in all forms of cricket and made a no-tolerance stand. Sri Lanka which just got the test status lost half of its key players. Even though the team was devastated there emerged a bunch of players which went to win the world cup in little over a decade.