It’s time to get a grip when it comes to the cricket scandal

OUR kids aren’t going to turn into rampant cheaters because of the ball tampering scandal. In fact, they might even learn some positive lessons about consequences from it, writes Louise Roberts.

AMID the #tapegate humiliation of our national cricket team, there has been some lost opportunity for fostering a character trait we routinely declare as vital in this Aussie society.

I’m not talking about humility or honesty, things that flash harry David Warner and his once merry band of sycophants would struggle to locate even if you drew them a map.

As the layers of scandal continue to document Our Greatest Shame Ever, there’s been an endless parade of adults flagging the same conundrum.

What about the kids? Well. Amid the adult hand-wringing, this week has shown that it is kids who can teach us grown-ups a thing or two about resilience because we seem to have conveniently forgotten about it.

Let’s go back 37 years to when the Australian captain, Greg Chappell, took his bowler brother Trevor Chappell aside and instructed him to make his final delivery an underarm ball along the ground.

Trevor did so, and the ball rolled to New Zealand tail-end batsman Brian McKechnie, who had no hope of scooping it up and sending it flying over the fence for the required six runs.

I can remember watching this on the television with my dad and brother at the time.

Were we shocked? You bet. But what I don’t recall is the parental analysis and overindulgence that followed. And that’s because it didn’t happen.

There were no hysterical voices raised in fear that their children would be incited to cheat in their own lives, whether it was during the local backyard cricket match or their Monday morning spelling test.

Cricket is a fixture of Australian households, even if it has taken a dark turn this week. (Pic: supplied)

The kids survived it and it never once occurred to me to blame Chappell when I was caught out in a lie or didn’t brush my teeth for the obligatory three minutes.

I remember dad’s disappointment that an Australian cricketer would behave in such a un-Australian way. So no one ever forgot what happened, but we moved on.

It became part of the furniture of our sporting identity, along with the triumphs and defeats, heroes and villains. But it did not define who we were.

A chat with my cricketing teen son and others in his playing demographic revealed this sentiment: the current mob who scuffed the ball in South Africa might be idiots who took a stupid risk, but they don’t represent us. I still love the sport, and I will still play cricket.

While normally it is parents setting an example for kids, this time it is the youth who are leading the way.

Their message to all those parents asking, ‘how do I explain that the team are cheats?’ is simple. A few players chose to do the wrong thing, they got caught, and now you have a front-row seat to watch how consequences work. Grown-ups, like everyone else, have to cop consequences.

What we shouldn’t do is collapse in a self-indulgent heap because if all we note in this saga is that the players stink and it’s the end, then what use is that?

We don’t need hand-wringing about shattered childhood dreams. We need perspective. Australian cricket can survive this and rise stronger than ever.

For all of our fears as parents, it’s our children who seem to understand what the Australian team’s mistake really means. (Pic: supplied)

For all our pontificating about life being about the bounce back and soldiering on in the face of adversity, it is we, the mums and dads sobbing into the cricket whites, who are failing here.

Perspective has been largely invisible as we have all been junkies hooked to a national intravenous drip feeding us the line that this is The End of decency and honesty in all Aussie sport, but can you hand on heart tell me that our kids are broken by this?

No one condones cheating. My son knows that, but he also knows that no one died and no one was caught taking performance enhancing drugs, among other crimes.

And so at the risk of incurring the wrath of cricket lovers — and indeed sports lovers in general — I think we need to get a grip.

For many Australians, sport is their religion, and they feel personally affronted that a group representing their country could betray them so badly. But no one was physically hurt, no one altered the course of history in any major way.

It’s time to move on. Not to forget, but to take the insight that comes with hindsight, and make it mean something.

I’m not sure spending so much energy on outrage, conjecture and demands for retribution is healthy for anyone, certainly not our kids.

They have learned this week that their heroes can stumble and fall off their pedestals, but that does not make them evil. Rather, just human, very stupid and arrogant.

And that is a valuable lesson.

@whatlouthinks

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Originally published as It’s time to get a grip when it comes to the cricket scandal