THE nasty ball-tampering incident at the Cape Town Test involving Australia’s top cricketers has sent shockwaves across the world of cricket. Skipper Steve Smith, vice captain David Warner and young opener Cameron Bancroft have been at the centre of the appalling episode that has brought Australian cricket at a crossroads after Smith confessed to hatching the tampering plot in connivance with his two teammates in order to outfox the dominant South Africans. Television footage clearly showed Bancroft taking a yellow object out of his pocket while fielding in the post-lunch session on Saturday and appearing to rub it on the ball.

The incident has embarrassed Australia, prompting Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to say that his own integrity as well as the team’s had come into question. Such a strong statement from the prime minister compelled the game’s governing body in the region, Cricket Australia, to conduct a hurried probe after initially resisting an inquiry. As a result, Smith and Warner have been stripped of their roles as captain and vice captain and are banned from international and domestic cricket for a year. Cameron has been suspended for nine months. There has been huge public outrage in Australia whereas most former players have called for life bans. There are others, though, such as spin wizard Shane Warne, who believe that the punishment is ‘excessive’.

Ball tampering in cricket is not new. Several bowlers from England, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, etc, have previously been accused of it. Some of them have been penalised while others have escaped with a reprimand. But what is mind-boggling about the Cape Town Test controversy is the level of desperation that made the players resort to such an unethical practice and to deliberately plot the opposing team’s downfall. It is time that the International Cricket Council and individual countries’ cricket boards devised stricter laws for such offences and gave more authority to the umpires to take swift action against the offenders in order to prevent future occurrences.

Cricket Australia has, indeed, set the tone by imposing year-long bans which could well see the end of Warner’s career besides minimising Smith’s chances of a comeback. However, it would be well advised to further reprimand the team’s long-standing coach Darren Lehmann who, despite having been absolved of any wrongdoing in the ugly saga, asked for forgiveness for the three culprits on the grounds that they were “not bad people”.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2018