The ball tampering saga
-
Donny
- Posts: 80170
- Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2002 6:01 pm
- Location: Toonumbar NSW Australia
- Has liked: 57 times
- Been liked: 25 times
Steve Smith has been suspended for the fourth Test in Johannesburg by the ICC after he was charged by the head of the governing body for "conduct contrary to the spirit of the game".
Smith was charged by ICC chief executive David Richardson, fined 100 per cent of his match fee and given a one-Test ban. He will have four demerit points on his record.
No points against Warner from the ICC.
Cricket Australia may also impose sanctions. If Warner escapes any penalty, we'll see the very interesting 'Who will captain in the 4th. Test' question arise.
Smith was charged by ICC chief executive David Richardson, fined 100 per cent of his match fee and given a one-Test ban. He will have four demerit points on his record.
No points against Warner from the ICC.
Cricket Australia may also impose sanctions. If Warner escapes any penalty, we'll see the very interesting 'Who will captain in the 4th. Test' question arise.
Donny.
It's a game. Enjoy it.
It's a game. Enjoy it.
It's much more shameful than that incident. Trevor followed the instructions of his captain, who happened to be his big brother, in a manner not against the letter of the law, although against its spirit. That was an unpremeditated decision by Greg, who was simply not in a rational mental state at the time. (A six would not have been such a disastrous outcome! And the boundaries at the G without all these batsmen-biased shortening ropes are rather large!)Jezza wrote:The most shameful day in Australia's cricket history since the underarm incident with Trevor Chappell back in 1981.
...
This incident is different (and worse) in so many ways. I might, though, wonder about what goes on in Smith's head. If you've been reading these cricket threads, you'll know he's reminded me in the past of Heater...
I'd go with TP regardless. There's nothing actually stopping him from asking those under him what bowling and fielding changes they want, including DW if he's in the team.Donny wrote:...
Cricket Australia may also impose sanctions. If Warner escapes any penalty, we'll see the very interesting 'Who will captain in the 4th. Test' question arise.
-
Culprit
- Posts: 17156
- Joined: Thu Feb 06, 2003 7:01 pm
- Location: Port Melbourne
- Has liked: 19 times
- Been liked: 39 times
When you stand the high moral ground you are going to get burnt. We have been pointing the finger for years and now it's our turn. We still get reminded about the underarm incident and that was in the 70's. This has put Cricket back 20 years and many will ignore the flow on effect. Test Cricket is struggling all round and this will not help. No one wants to put the $$ up for the rights to Test Cricket, Big Bash yes but not the lot. Australia has to banish Smith and not allow him to play cricket ever. Anyone else involved gets a 10 year ban. It might be harsh and extreme but as far as I am concerned it should be extreme. It's a national disgrace.
^ All countries have been pointing fingers for decades and pretending to stand on high moral ground. They deny wrongdoing even when they're caught, even when it's on video, even after they've been found guilty and penalized. They do all that because it works, for them and their delusional supporters. Ultimately, it's cricket itself that loses.
I think it could have been just an astonishing lapse in judgement. The absurdity of it being in a not-so-meaningful match that, from memory, they were well in control of simply adds to the sadness of the whole situation.
We don't know these people personally. It's always their actions that should give us a clue to their character, not a preconceived idea about their character that should lure us into explaining away their actions.
There was very clear and damning video of the incident. It no doubt is now available for viewing again online. His defence, like the other defences mounted over the years by the Indian board, was terrible and display the same m.o.: They don't even make up their own implausible stories, but simply borrow these excuses from others. It's that obvious pattern that has shredded their credibility, but it does not matter to them, because they are playing to their own people. The whole point of denying no matter what is to introduce doubt even where it does not exist. In this particular case, the commentator at the time was the late Tony Greig. He said something about it looking very bad, and then added something like: "Unless he's trying to remove the lolly from the ball." And, just like that, that was the excuse the board produced in the subsequent days to reject Clive Lloyd's findings.
To believe this excuse, one would first have to accept that somehow, for no reason, a lozenge became attached to the ball. How so? Was there a stray lozenge lying in the outfield? If there was, what is the chance that the ball would have struck it? And if so struck, what is the chance that the lozenge would have become attached? At the very least, you'd think any hope of attachment would rely on the lozenge still retaining some moisture, which presumably would rely on it being fairly fresh. Okay, retreat and find another explanation. Maybe Rahul was actually sucking that lozenge. (I am unconvinced about the benefits of sucking lozenges while fielding, but never mind.) In that case, how did it get from mouth to ball, again not merely touching ball but attaching itself? Okay, so the story presumably has to be that Rahul was trying to shine the ball, wanted some saliva on his fingers, and somehow became forgetful of the fact there was actually a lozenge on his tongue. The lozenge somehow had to transfer itself from tongue to fingers and then to ball, at no stage of its acrobatic routine doing anything boring such as simply falling to ground.
Okay, but we're not done. There's the small problem of the tv footage. One heck of an inept way to try to remove the lozenge. The footage showed the lozenge between fingerpad and ball surface, with the fingerpad parallel to the surface (the lozenge being like stuff in a sandwich). Surely if you're trying to remove something, your fingerpad is oriented at least partway towards the perpendicular, not sandwiching the thing you're supposedly trying to remove.
No. Clive Lloyd was correct. Rahul was guilty.
We don't know these people personally. It's always their actions that should give us a clue to their character, not a preconceived idea about their character that should lure us into explaining away their actions.
There was very clear and damning video of the incident. It no doubt is now available for viewing again online. His defence, like the other defences mounted over the years by the Indian board, was terrible and display the same m.o.: They don't even make up their own implausible stories, but simply borrow these excuses from others. It's that obvious pattern that has shredded their credibility, but it does not matter to them, because they are playing to their own people. The whole point of denying no matter what is to introduce doubt even where it does not exist. In this particular case, the commentator at the time was the late Tony Greig. He said something about it looking very bad, and then added something like: "Unless he's trying to remove the lolly from the ball." And, just like that, that was the excuse the board produced in the subsequent days to reject Clive Lloyd's findings.
To believe this excuse, one would first have to accept that somehow, for no reason, a lozenge became attached to the ball. How so? Was there a stray lozenge lying in the outfield? If there was, what is the chance that the ball would have struck it? And if so struck, what is the chance that the lozenge would have become attached? At the very least, you'd think any hope of attachment would rely on the lozenge still retaining some moisture, which presumably would rely on it being fairly fresh. Okay, retreat and find another explanation. Maybe Rahul was actually sucking that lozenge. (I am unconvinced about the benefits of sucking lozenges while fielding, but never mind.) In that case, how did it get from mouth to ball, again not merely touching ball but attaching itself? Okay, so the story presumably has to be that Rahul was trying to shine the ball, wanted some saliva on his fingers, and somehow became forgetful of the fact there was actually a lozenge on his tongue. The lozenge somehow had to transfer itself from tongue to fingers and then to ball, at no stage of its acrobatic routine doing anything boring such as simply falling to ground.
Okay, but we're not done. There's the small problem of the tv footage. One heck of an inept way to try to remove the lozenge. The footage showed the lozenge between fingerpad and ball surface, with the fingerpad parallel to the surface (the lozenge being like stuff in a sandwich). Surely if you're trying to remove something, your fingerpad is oriented at least partway towards the perpendicular, not sandwiching the thing you're supposedly trying to remove.
No. Clive Lloyd was correct. Rahul was guilty.
I have not watched it again, so my comments are from memory. But my opinion of the footage was the same as Lloyd's. I certainly did not see that as a "wiping off" action. And to have the lozenge attached like that through innocent means seems an incredible amount of bad luck. It was also not the first such incident for the team, apparently. Prior to that incident, Tendulkar was fined 75% of his fee for essentially the same thing. And their morally bankrupt board again exploded, making demands about who could or could not officiate in their matches. I'm also taking into account what I referred to above, the board's subsequent pattern of just stealing weak excuses from the public sphere. Their lack of morality is seemingly matched by their lack of imagination.
-
Dave The Man
- Posts: 44974
- Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:04 pm
- Location: Someville, Victoria, Australia
- Been liked: 8 times
- Contact: