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I. Chappell wrote:... How has Australia, once regarded as the best groomer of captains in the cricket world, reached such a state of destitution?
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There's every chance that Paine will further enhance his leadership reputation by the end of summer with victory over both Pakistan and New Zealand. At that point he'll decide whether he wants to build on that reputation or call it quits while he's in front.
If it's the latter then CA had better hope that either a good candidate has surged to the head of the queue or Smith is in the right frame of mind to tackle the job a second time. If Paine's successor is Smith, it'll mean the Australian captaincy production line is in need of a serious recharge.
[Comment: it's about more than just "the right frame of mind". It's also about whether you're trashing the image of cricket.]
M. Knox wrote:...
The kindest spin is that it was a wry comment on power, a quip from the Australian captain about the prerogatives vested in his Indian counterpart. If it was an attempt at humour, it came out as acidic rather than funny. This, if you were listening to Paine's workaday "banter" from behind the stumps, is fully in character. Humour isn't his strong suit.
What was out of character was that it was undiplomatic and strategically dumb.
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The question of Smith's return or non-return to the captaincy has become a uniquely moral issue. Is he a good enough person to be captain again? Is he reformed? Can someone who made the mistakes Smith made ever be sufficiently reformed? Because these are all moral queries, Paine had to be portrayed in counterpoint as a moral paragon, a standard against which Smith would be measured. Somewhere along the line, the question became whether the moral rectitude of the office of the Australian cricket captaincy would be enhanced or diminished if Steve Smith succeeded Tim Paine. Given what we had turned Paine into, how could Smith (or anyone else) measure up?
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David Warner was once an estimated $6 million-a-year man before sponsors ran for the hills in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.
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Warner has become more comfortable appearing before the media without the threat of questions about Cape Town, although he can expect a lucrative pay day should he eventually agree to a "tell all". His manager James Erskine had told The Age and Sydney Morning Herald he had fielded $1 million offers.
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Sources involved in handing down the punishments to Warner, Smith and Cameron Bancroft said the CA board of directors at the time did not broach the issue of banning Warner from state or BBL captaincy because they felt it was not in their remit to dictate to the states whether he could take on a leadership role. However, CA confirmed on Sunday the ban covered national and domestic teams.
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"I tell you what I don't like to see, Steve Smith is moving a few fieldsmen around," Chappell said on Macquarie Sports Radio.
"He did have a chat with Tim Paine, trying to talk Tim Paine into moving a fielder on the off-side, but I'm not sure Tim Paine moved him as far as Steve Smith wanted.
"Steve Smith started moving him, I hate to see that.
"England used to do it a bit, blokes other than the captain (moving the field), and I always felt it was white anting the captain."
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Geoff Lawson wrote:... The crusade against players roughing leather in the hope of reverse swing has been fanatical, misplaced, misunderstood and counter-productive to entertaining cricket.
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Put simply, Ponting said, all well-rounded teams needed senior figures around them who have the ability to "say no" when questions of character, ethics or sharp practice are raised. This was conspicuously absent at the height of the Newlands scandal.
"I was a bit worried that with a lot of the experience going out of our team at the same time, that there would be a bit of a void left with experienced players to be able to say 'no' basically," Ponting said. "If I look at where things got at Cape Town I just don't think there were enough people around that team to say 'no' to some of those guys. Things got completely out of control. That's very much an outsider's view on it. I had nothing to do with the team really until the last couple of years around some Twenty20 cricket and the World Cup last year.
"I probably should have retired three or four years earlier than I did but I was really worried about where the direction of the Australian cricket team was going if I wasn't around. And I wanted to be around to help Warner and Smith and Nathan Lyon and Peter Siddle and Mitchell Johnson. I wanted to help them through that initial phase of their international careers because I knew it wasn't going to be easy for them."
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At 33, there is almost certainly little chance Warner would have the opportunity to captain or deputise in an Australian side in any of the three formats, but there could be an opportunity in the Big Bash League if he chose to return to the Twenty20 competition.
Erskine said he and Warner would discuss the issue soon after Australia's home campaign finished ... and depending on this he would seek a meeting with CA chief executive, Kevin Roberts.
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"The whole of the madness of what happened, happened for two reasons. One, Malcolm Turnbull, who in fairness knows bugger all about sport, jumped up and down like a pork chop and said it was a disgrace and wanted answers," Erskine said.
"The second thing was, everyone started talking in South Africa, not knowing the reaction of what happened in Australia. I can understand how the whole thing snowballed but I don't think the results were fair and were handled particularly well. Certainly Turnbull didn't help, and I count him as a friend."
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Decision-makers well understand the need for the ball to be polished to enable a fair balance in the contest between bat and ball beyond the early overs of an innings. As a consequence they are open to the option of allowing for the use of an agreed artificial substance to polish the ball under the supervision of the umpires - in the fashion they currently allow the ball to be cleaned by players under supervision. This would effectively allow for what is currently considered ball-tampering, in the interests of health and safety.
Such a move would likely require flexibility in terms of the substance depending on the ball being used. Kookaburra, Dukes and SG balls, to name three, are all likely to respond better to slightly different substances such as leather moisturiser, wax or shoe polish. It would also require a degree of flexibility in terms of being allowed at all levels of the game, to prevent players at every level from sharing a ball that has been lathered in saliva.
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[Comment: it shouldn't have taken COVID-19 for this to be discussed. It's long overdue. I don't know that (untainted) saliva is more effective than water, anyway. Ideally, the umpires would have some standard liquid mixture that allows more swing and reverse swing. ]
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The board sees him as a safe pair of hands to steer CA in the coming months while a successor to Roberts is sought.
Roberts will leave the organisation after only 20 months in the job and with 18 months remaining on his contract.
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[Comment: So who's left of all those self-serving administrators from the time of the ball tampering? It's not a surprise that Roberts was a failure. He just politicked his way to the top. Media have been scathing of his economic mismanagement. They say COVID-19 came at the perfect time for cricket, when the season was already over.]
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Roberts' handling of cricket's response to the global health crisis, however, exposed the scars from his past.
His inability to make any headway as CA sought to make savings from the players, states and staff while also seeking a line of credit from the banks was "deadly", Speed said. CA chairman Earl Eddings had said "new leadership" was required.
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