Piers Akerman: There’s more treachery in politics than in sport

IT’S a fair bet that a majority of Australians had never contemplated the practice of ball tampering before last week but most would have been aware of the notion of cheating, Piers Akerman writes.

IT’S a fair bet that a majority of Australians had never contemplated the practice of ball tampering before last week but most would have been aware of the notion of cheating.

Cheating, or to give a neat definition, acting dishonestly to gain an advantage, is in many areas of the law illegal.

When it occurs on the sporting field the question of the legality of the act is usually overshadowed by the immorality of the action.

Sporting contests are meant to be decided by fair means.

Sportsmen and sportswomen are meant to be just that — sports. Not bad sports, good sports. Of all the sports played, cricket is the game that has entered the English language as the ideal for good sportsmanship. We don’t say “it’s not hockey”, or “it’s not football”, “not beach volleyball” or “just not badminton”.

Cricketer David Warner’s tearful press conference, where he apologised for his actions in the ball tampering saga. Picture: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

We say “it’s not cricket”, ­implying that cricket and those who play it do so in some manner that carries an ultimate ­expectation to be free of any sort taint. It’s not an each-way bet, it’s a statement of certainty, unequivocal, and it’s understood to be so by those who speak English or read from the canon of English literature around the world, even those who wouldn’t know a googly from an LBW bowled in a maiden over, let alone the carry-on about silly mid-on.

Multiculturalisms and the snivelling republican movement members will cringe but the standards we expected to be reflected by cricket and its players were those of the British, whose legacy we continue to enjoy in the form of a relatively stable system of government, a better than average legal system and a general civility that is beyond the imagination of most UN nations.

Good manners, sportsmanship, doing one’s best no matter what, accepting the result with good grace, congratulating one’s opponents, playing fairly (walking when you know you’re out and not waiting for the umpire), accepting defeat and victory with the same aplomb.

The national response has not reflected an existential blow to our national identity, as Australia’s feted Muslim commentator Waleed Aly claims.

Our national identity — which the Left denies exists — was wrought in the actions of men and women of the statue of Sir John Monash and Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, and those who laboured to build the Snowy and dig the gold and lay the railroad tracks.

Cameron Bancroft’s blatant attempt to cheat, an act apparently condoned by the now former Test captain Steve Smith and former vice-captain David Warner, was premeditated. It was a conscious act agreed by adults.

Former Australian cricket captain Steve Smith breaks down during his press conference last week. Picture: AP Photo/Steve Christo

Extraordinarily, the first ­admission Bancroft had ­attempted to disfigure the ball involved a lie. It was not tape but sandpaper that he applied to the leather. Doubling down on dishonesty, one might say.

The perpetrators have now been formally punished and it’s a fair bet that they will suffer more humiliation in coming weeks and months.

But why do Australians ­elevate sportsmen and women to dizzying heights of moral ­superiority when most can judge these individuals solely on their athletic skills, to kick a football, bowl, steer, hit a target with a bullet or an arrow?

There are probably just as many decent people in sport as there are in any other selection of those who have excelled in their fields of endeavour, and probably just as many uncouth oafs and louts.

Being a larrikin is entirely different. The best of larrikins combine a degree of wit and panache and manage to amuse rather than outrage with their antics. The Test trio weren’t engaging in larrikin behaviour however. They were trying to achieve a better outcome by deceit and they’re paying for their duplicity.

Far worse treachery is ­engaged in by our politicians on a regular basis and the ­impact on the nation is far worse than the risk of being chided by an Indian or English customs official for coming from a country whose national cricket team has been caught cheating.

The Greens are by far the most dishonest party in Parliament and the false claims its members have made about subjects as diverse as the treatment of illegal immigrants to the ­effects of flawed climate modelling have damaged the nation.

Why do Australians ­elevate sportsmen and women to dizzying heights of moral ­superiority when most can judge these individuals solely on their athletic skills, to kick a football, bowl, steer, hit a target with a bullet or an arrow?

Labor is rapidly catching up to them though, disowning fiscal policies it recently championed and embracing populist anti-business dogma that will drive investment offshore.

The Liberal Party under Malcolm Turnbull is not blameless either. All however have sent members out to hypocritically rend their garments and tear their hair at the televised perfidy of the cricketers.

Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews’s government has recently been exposed as presiding over the most monstrous abuse of taxpayers’ funds and a subsequent ­attempt to block any public scrutiny of this act of dishonesty.

His government won election on the back of illegally ­obtained funding. He should, had he any decency, have ­resigned when the depth of this deceit was revealed.

But no one holds up politicians as exemplars of morality.

This scandal has highlighted the erosion of what used to be called character. It is laughable that big businesses — and sport is big business — have fallen over themselves to display their virtue in all manner of ­social causes from homosexual marriage to opposition to coal-fired power plants, but they have simultaneously found it necessary to employ legions of so-called human resources professionals to advise them on ethics and integrity.

How shameful for the self-anointed leaders of the ­community to have to rely on self-professed experts in doublespeak for their expressions of honour and uprightness.

The board of Cricket Australia, a hapless bunch at the best of times, might set the lead now and dismiss all those whom it has been paying to set its moral and ethical standards and then resign as a board.

We don’t need people to teach ethics, as we don’t need hypocritical politicians to waste taxpayers’ money legislating behaviour.

We simply need to find people of character, people who know truth from lies, people to whom dishonesty is ­abhorrent, people who don’t believe in winning at any cost, compromising principles, to lead us back into the light.