Sorry, Steve. We don’t forgive that easily

Australians may love to see their sporting stars win, but it’ll take a lot more than a stellar test match performance for Steve Smith to win us back from the humiliation of his ball-tampering scandal last year, writes David Mills.

Steve Smith isn’t forgiven just yet. Picture: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP

A stunning victory.

England humiliated. A win for the true believers.

As always when the Aussies thrash the Poms in cricket, the headlines are more gleeful, the taste of victory that little bit sweeter.

And this time around, the win in the First Test comes with an extra layer of meaning: the supposed “redemption” of Steve Smith, who scored centuries in both innings and was made Man of the Match.

It was a standout performance from the former Australian captain upon his return to test cricket, after he served a 12-month suspension for his role in the ball tampering incident in South Africa.

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The Daily Telegraph called him “The best red-ball batsman on the planet, without question”.

But does such a title come with redemption? No. Not yet.

To claim that Smith’s impressive on-field performance was a redemption is to misunderstand the magnitude of the original offence, just as Smith himself seemed to fail to realise its gravity when, fronting up to his first press conference after the incident, he told reporters that he would not be resigning as captain.

Smith thought it was something he could easily put behind him then, just as his cheer squad seem to think now.

Steve Smith was named player of the match award at Edgbaston. Picture: Ryan Pierse/Getty

But the reality is that we will still be referencing the ball-tampering incident for years, if not decades to come. The news of it travelled further than the news of this victory, which will ultimately be forgotten by everyone except the cricket fans, even if we do go on to win the Ashes in this series.

After the ball tampering story broke, former Australian bowler Trevor Chappell said the players responsbile for it would “likely struggle for the rest of their lives and be known as the ones who brought Australian cricket into disrepute”.

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He would know: his underarm delivery on the final ball of the final over in a one day match against New Zealand in Melbourne in 1981 darkened Australia’s sporting reputation for a long time.

His brother Greg Chappell - who as captain ordered Trevor to bowl the underm ball - appeared to equivocate today when discussing Smith’s performance in the first test at Edgebaston.

David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft all made their return in the First Test. While Smith’s return has been hailed as a “redemption” by some, there have been no such plaudits for the other two. Picture: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

“I don’t know whether it’s full redemption ... but he’s taken a huge stride obviously towards that redemption, and the way forward for that redemption is for him to keep making runs,” he told the ABC.

It’s a flawed line of reasoning Chappell is using here given that the other two players involved in the ball-tampering plot, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, both had disastrous comebacks in the same test. Do we not consider them redeemed because they struggled?

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The idea that anything can be forgiven if the result is a win for Australia is troubling; it seems that it was this kind of thinking that probably motivated the players to consider cheating in the first place.

There is one way for Smith, Warner and Bancroft to be redeemed and it has nothing to do with hitting centuries, winning test matches or bringing home the Ashes.

In fact, it is much, much easier.

All they have to do is play fair, throughout the rest of their careers.

David Mills is a journalist with News Corp.

@DavidMills1972

Originally published as Sorry, Steve. We don’t forgive that easily