Wisden Almanack damning in its take on response to ball-tampering scandal

The respected Wisden Almanack is scathing over Australia’s response to the ball-tampering scandal, openly questioning the investigations’ findings that only three players were involved.

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England is waiting with baseball bats for Australia’s troubled cricket team to return to its shores for the 2019 World Cup and Ashes.

The respected Wisden Almanack has fired the first shot in its latest edition, claiming the investigation into the sandpaper scandal “felt like a whitewash”. The editorial questions findings that only three players were involved.

The editor’s notes expressed a deep contempt for the way Australian cricket had conducted itself in recent years and signal what can only be a hostile reception when David Warner and Steve Smith make their return to cricket in the UK next month as part of the World Cup campaign.

Wisden was scathing in its assessment of how Australian authorities responded to the Newlands scandal.

In his editorial for the 156th edition of the publication, editor Lawrence Booth is cynical about the findings made by Cricket Australia counsel Iain Roy after a limited investigation into the incident in Cape Town last year.

Roy concluded that only Smith, Warner and Cameron Bancroft were involved and notions it had happened before were dismissed.

Booth dismisses the investigation’s hasty findings and questions the reaction to the incident.

“An inquiry by Cricket Australia felt more like a whitewash: there had been no previous tampering, and only three players were involved,” Booth writes.

“Fancy that … The outrage was disproportionate: fiddling with the ball, if not rubbing it with sandpaper, happens.

“But there was more to it than outrage. Australia had been undone by the hubris-nemesis one-two, which has kept playwrights in business since Ancient Greece.

“With their prattle about the line — where it should be drawn (just beyond whatever the Australians had just done) and by whom (the Australians, naturally) — Smith’s side forfeited the last drop of goodwill.

Cameron Bancroft is captaining Durham in this year’s County Championship. Picture: Getty Images

“This wasn’t just English tittering: many of their compatriots were sick of them too. To cheat so brazenly confirmed a widely held suspicion: Australia believed they were above the law.”

Former Cricket Australia director Mark Taylor recently raised questions as to whether there had been other incidents of ball tampering.

“There was no probe into finding out how long it had been going on for,” Taylor told Wide World of Sports.

“Was this the first time? There’s no doubt this ‘ball management’ has been going on for a long time, and I dare say every country is either doing it or working out how to do it, but there’s a line somewhere between ball management and ball tampering.

“The grey area in all of this is how much of this ball management in the past was tampering and went unnoticed.”

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Steve Smith claimed publicly that the incident in Cape Town was a one off.

“I can promise you this is the first time it’s happened,” Smith said.

Cricket Australia chief executive Kevin Roberts said recently if there was any evidence to the contrary the administration was keen to hear it.

“We’re really serious about addressing any unresolved issues and we’re sincere in the way we’re going about that,” Roberts said. “So if there are any reports or allegations as opposed to innuendo, then we will investigate that thoroughly.”

Bancroft faced the English media this week before assuming his role as captain of Durham.

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The opener revealed he had almost walked away from cricket after the incident, but was in a better place now and hoped he could return to the Test side.

“As much as I missed cricket, the opportunity it gave me to look at myself was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” he said. “I had to go home. Sit with myself, grieve, forgive myself, and then ultimately move forward.

“I’ve learned a lot about myself, I think being able to take time to detach myself from cricket was something that I found a lot of joy in. To know that the identity and person I created from being a professional cricketer, a game which I love, I think I was just able to connect a lot with different parts of the community, meet a lot of great people.

“Turning that event from South Africa into a positive was something I was really proud of and to have that opportunity to grow as a person, you’d be silly not to take those steps forward.’’

West Indies great Curtly Ambrose took aim at Australia’s response to the ball tampering on Fox Cricket earlier this week, saying the punishments were not harsh enough.

“You do not want to deprive professionals doing something that they love,” Ambrose said on Wednesday night on Bill and Boz.

“But when you break the law like that you should be punished and I honestly thought they got away with murder. I think a year was a little bit (lenient). I would have said two years — just to send a message because it was stupid really.”

Originally published as Wisden Almanack damning in its take on response to ball-tampering scandal