Ashley Mallett: These so-called leaders need to be banned for life
ANYONE who had a hand in ball tampering should never again be allowed to represent Australia, and if coach Darren Lehmann was involved his statue at Adelaide Oval should be torn down, writes Ashley Mallett.
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IN the wake of this disgraceful episode of ball tampering by the so-called Australian Cricket Team’s “leadership group,” Cricket Australia has no option but to ban Steve Smith and David Warner for life.
And if coach Darren Lehmann and others such as Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazelwood and Nathan Lyon are found to be complicit in the conspiracy they too should go — for ever.
Lehmann’s tenure is on a knife edge anyway, but if he’s part of the Cape Town plot, his statue at Adelaide Oval should be torn down, among other sanctions. As a Test player who played in an era of hard but fair cricket in the 1970s and 1980s, we loved the game and its traditions.
To even contemplate cheating was foreign to our psyche and tantamount to becoming a traitor to this nation.
Messrs Smith, Warner and Company should realise that today’s Test players are custodians of the game: a game which throughout Test match history in this nation has adhered to the great values of cricket.
As the events unfold we are learning of the bullying by Australian players and their arrogant, dismissive attitude towards the traditions of the game.
Today’s players should be mindful of their responsibility to leave the game in a better state than they found it. It is a time honoured, yet unwritten law.
Back in the latter stages of the 19th Century Lord Hawke, a colossus in world cricket, who played for Cambridge University, Yorkshire and England, then a leading administrator for 40 years, was the stalwart of all things good in this magnificent game, wrote:
“Cricket is a moral lesson in itself, and the classroom is God’s air and sunshine. Foster it, my brothers, protect it from anything that will sully it, so that it will be in favour with all men.”
Hawke’s beautiful words tell us all that is wonderful about cricket: that is cricket when is played hard, but fair and in the spirit of the game.
What have we witnessed of late? All that is grubby and deceitful about a group of would be cricketing thugs who intimidate their opponents like schoolyard bullies.
It worked perfectly for them against the inept, weak England team during the Ashes summer, but this time they were up against a tough South African unit who refused to cower from the bully that is the Australian cricket team.
The so-called “leadership group” were gutless to the very core the way they encouraged the eager, naive Cameron Bancroft to do their dirty work. Un-Australian stuff which paints a very unpalatable picture of this Australian cricket team and its bunch of bullies.
With Smith and Warner likely to be sidelined for some time, maybe forever, who can lead the Australian Test team?
Former Test batsman and chairman of selectors John Inverarity said today: “I hope this awful incident is not seen as a ‘one off’. It happened within a culture which is seriously substandard.”
Inverarity advocates George Bailey to take over as Australian captain.
“Various unacceptable values, attitudes and behaviours have seen the Australian team hurtling down a track that has resulted in this trainwreck.”
“This Australian team needs a decent, honest and hardworking person to lead it.
“George Bailey should be given the job for the next 18 months.”
First CA should sack the culprits of this fiasco for life.
Recently I’ve heard how this ball tampering has been going on with all countries for yonks. When decent people ignore wrongdoing, that is when bad things happen in this life. The players banned should also be ordered to hand back their Baggy Green caps for they have soiled the very fabric of the game.
Ashley Mallett is a former Australian cricketer who played in 38 Tests and 9 One Day Internationals between 1968 and 1980.
Originally published as Ashley Mallett: These so-called leaders need to be banned for life