A piece of sandpaper and an eagle-eyed cameraman sent the game into moral meltdown. Lawrence Booth, editor of the Wisden Almanack, puts cricket’s latest cock-up in perspective.
Did the punishment fit the crime? It really depends how you defined the crime. Because if a year out of the game seemed a bit much for scraping sandpaper on a ball – so feebly, it turned out, that the umpires didn’t even impose a five-run penalty – then Australia had already set themselves up for a fall that sat somewhere between Greek tragedy and Shakespearean farce.
The cock-up in Cape Town was one of those perfect storms that cricket throws up every few years. It involved a team that had been allowed by its own board, coaches and media to behave like brats; the world’s most unpopular player; plenty of sanctimony and moralising (in this, cricket remains in a league of its own); and all the failings which make us human. It even had a spot of Ealing comedy, as someone tried to shove the evidence down the front of his trousers.
For Warner, there was less sympathy – and a horrible moment when he and his wife emerged to face a media scrum at Sydney airport carrying their two young children. It was the most vulnerable vignette of his career.
He, too, benefited from gullible coverage. Too many swallowed the story that he had morphed from The Bull to The Reverend. They overlooked his obnoxious talk about “hatred” and “war” before the last Ashes, and the role he played in the vilification of Jonny Bairstow at Brisbane. The attitude of much of the Australian press appeared to be: he may be a moron, but he’s our moron. World cricket will be better off without him.
And, in a year’s time, it will benefit from the return of Smith, who will have the lure of a World Cup and an Ashes series to keep him going in the dark months ahead. Here’s hoping he sees the light.
