How^

Cricket has always been seen as a "gentleman's game", but is sometimes far from it.

The biggest advantages to a bowling team are the pitch and the ball. The pitch can be manipulated through the old "forgot to turn off the sprinklers" routine, or by bowlers affecting the pitch, but ball tampering beyond shining one side on the old whites is a big no no.

Others have done it in the past through lollies to get extra shine, or by picking the thread to get extra rough, but the use of sandpaper is "innovative" to say the least and to think no-one at the ground would see it is a little naive.

I'm a little bewildered at the incident.

They say, the captaincy of the Australian Test team is the second most important job in Australia, behind being Prime Minister. I think if Steve Smith hatched the plan, or knew about it and did nothing to stop it, he really needs to go.

I wonder how many hours the average outraged Aussie has spent watching test cricket the past 12 months. Hard to find a topic I care less about... They broke the rules, punish them with whatever the rules state is the punishment and let's all move on with our lives. Anyone would think they got caught importing headphones into Colombia with the amount of press this crap gets....

Early NBA players (1950s-60s)used to be accused of literally "takeing the air out of the ball". Apparently a less inflated ball assisted their "handle" , certainly made palming the ball easier.

I "think" I remember the charge being leveled against at least one 1980's NBA superstar.

https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2015/1/28/7929177/deflategate-tom-brady-nba-basketball-phil-jackson

https://sports.yahoo.com/phil-jackson-confirms-that-nba-teams-have-been-deflating-basketballs-for-decades-204801747.html?

I'm one of those bored by the whole over-blown response to the 'scandal’. I assume it gets so much air-time because it’s such a traditional sport and so many of the oldies (cough) running the place probably played it or grew up when it DID matter. Sadly, it’s another one of those cultural cringe things - Davis Cup and cricket mattered so much because Australia was WINNING all the time, and now aren’t as important to the majority.

Does anyone else remember the ‘scandal’ around basketball nets? Teams used to shorten or lengthen the nets depending on the type of game they played. Fast-breaking teams cut their nets shorter so that the ball would fall through them faster and could be put back in play faster.

I maintain that Adelaide tampered with the Wilson in the fourth quarter on Sunday

The stigma of being labelled international sporting cheats isn't something to take lightly.

Countries have copped heaps in the past for individual cheats, Russia was the latest to become labelled cheats at the Olympic level and we are still having to answer for the Chappel underarm incident (even if that was technically not cheating but also not ethical).

This incident has huge ramifications, no matter what people think about the sport of cricket, or how it has massively changed since the IPL money and Big Bash (20/20) leagues have again altered the pathways of the game.

This hurts us where we hate it the most, our international integrity, the mystique of Australian sportsmanship is going to take a big hit.

Say what you will about the demise of test cricket or irrelevance of the sport outside the commonwealth, it is still going to hurt and for a long time...

Hard to compare the Russian state-sponsored doping across a ton of sporting events with a guy tampering with a ball IMO. Outside of the national cricket team, I really doubt there is going to be any flow on effect for other Australian sportsmen. I doubt anyone outside of a small handful of countries will ever even know it happened.

It's actually pretty funny people don't think this is a big story.
The Australian crcket team has always been considered the No.1 team representing Australia on the international sporting stage. Bigger than the Wallabies, Socceroos and certainly much bigger than the Boomers, in the eyes of the average Australian - due to its history and traditiin.
Having your vice captain supposedly coaching a junior player how to cheat, with rhe captain at least having prior knowledge - then everyone lying about it and the backlash it's caused, of course it's a huge story.
Also, Australia on the international stage is renowned for pointing the finger at others for "cheatibg" - in all sports - so to be caught out blatantly doing the same, it is a black stain on Australian sport that will linger for a long time.

So now they're the victims in this because they've been caught out? Yeh I don't get that at all. It's OK for them to act arrogantly on and off the field - with the sledging and bullying and all that goes with that - but now they should be left alone because there's a chance they're going to suffer?

And the "well everyone else does it" excuse is BS as well. It's that sort of attitude that's allowed drug cheating to run rampant in sports like cycling for so long. And, again, Australians are always the ones who are pointing the fingers accusing others. If you want to point the finger, accept the consequences that it'll be pointed back when you don't live up to your supposed high standards.
I for one don't pity these guys. They're adults and they know what they were doing.

That post says way more about you than the Australian media tbh

"Funnily enough the ITF have finally scrapped the Davis Cup antiquated format."

They're actually trialing a new format in the lower rungs, but have kept pretty much the same format in the world group.

I'd say the media blowup is disproportionate to the actual care factor of the Australian public, not unlike Schapelle Corby's release a little while ago. I find it a little bit sad how our media leaps on events like this as if they were a large-scale international scandal - like the nerve agent poisoning in the UK or flight MH17.

I have a handful of friends who are cricket fans, and I'd say they are split pretty cleanly 50/50 on outrage vs 'punish them and move on', and outside of them I've barely heard peep about it not counting TV/online news coverage. Maybe a joke or two in the lunch room at our office.

Australia is a great cricket nation, sure, but that means diddly squat to the majority of the world. I've had zero people ever talk to me about cricket when I'm overseas and they find out I'm Aussie. Basketball a few times (especially in the US), and rugby probably most of all.