Steve Smith doesn’t need redemption. We do

Steve Smith takes a breath after his magnificent century on Day One of the First Ashes test at Edgbaston. Picture: Ryan Pierse/Getty

I will leave it to the cricket wordsmiths, Gideon Haigh and Peter Lalor, to paint the verbal images of the exquisite innings played by Steve Smith last night and in the wee hours of this morning at Edgbaston.

What I will say is that it was a knock for the ages, a feat both of concentration and will. On the rare occasions Smith played a false stroke, he would swing his bat wildly about and visibly excoriate himself for his poor choice. He was a man set on achievement while his batting partners fell by the wayside.

It has been 484 days since Smith represented his country at Test level. The reasons for his absence are well known. Today his 144, more than half the team score, is being described as an act of redemption.

The ICC determined Smith should face a one Test suspension in the wake of the ball tampering incident at Newlands in March last year. He was fined 100 per cent of his match fee and issued four demerit points. Cameron Bancroft was fined 75 per cent of his match fee and given three demerit points but the ICC declined to suspend the young opening batsman. The ICC made no finding against David Warner.

But even by the ICC’s standards, the penalty handed to Smith was in stark contrast to the lenience extended to other ball bothers.

Ball botherer leniency

England captain, Michael Atherton was fined two thousand quid for rubbing dirt on the ball in a Test match at Lords against South Africa in 1994.

During India’s tour of South Africa in 2001, Sachin Tendulkar was pulled up by match referee, Mike Denness for scuffing the seam on one side of the ball. Tendulkar faced no penalty. Rather Denness was not permitted entry to the ground in the subsequent Test amid allegations of racism. India, the cricket monolith, is its own judge and jury and its heroes always skate from scrutiny.

Faf du Plessis pleaded guilty to ball tampering by rubbing the ball on the metallic zip of his pants in a Test against Pakistan in the UAE in 2013.

He lost half of his match fee. On that occasion the umpires examined the ball and awarded five runs to the batting side and replaced the ball. Later, in Hobart against Australia in 2016, Du Plessis was found guilty of using saliva from a sweet or mint to polish the ball. He lost his match fee but that is where the matter ended. He is now captain of South Africa.

Bandwagon of outrage

When Bancroft was rumbled fiddling around with his pants, public figures sanctimoniously offered up their views. Many called for lifetime bans. The role of then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is not properly understood to this day. We do know he contacted a director at Cricket Australia. Before the next day’s play resumed Smith and Warner had lost their leadership positions.

Bill Shorten clambered onto the bandwagon of outrage. Jeff Kennett called for anyone involved to be cast out of the game forever.

Most of the moralising came from people who had not witnessed the transgression live but had made their lurid judgments based on highlights packages that, by late morning after the third day’s play at Newlands had ended, was on high rotation on all television networks.

It was cheap shots at twenty paces. Ugly behaviour, the social media equivalent of a lynch mob.

Conveniently ignored was the fact that the ball tampering had brought no stolen riches. From the time Bancroft began working on the ball with the piece of sandpaper stashed in his pants to the time the umpires intervened, Australia did not take a wicket and South Africa piled on the runs.

It was a nasty but failed attempt to obtain an unfair advantage. More so than cheating, it was stupidity writ large and we should be inclined to forgive stupidity because everyone, sooner or later, does it.

But, mindful of the ugly noise across the country, Cricket Australia set upon a course of long-term suspensions and put Smith, Warner and Bancroft in cricket isolation. Bancroft copped nine months, Smith and Warner twelve.

Aussie appetite for humiliation

I said then and I repeat now, the penalty was excessive, not just for Smith but for David Warner and Cameron Bancroft as well. Smith was ritually shamed and lost millions, all to sate this country’s appetite for routine acts of public humiliation.

Not long after the penalties were handed down, friends in England asked me what the hell was going on. These English cricket lovers were perplexed at why Australia and its commentariat were hell bent on crushing its fallen heroes.

The best explanation I could find was that Australia in the early 21st Century is not only an unforgiving country, but it feels the need to crucify, albeit metaphorically, prominent Australians every three months or so, lest people be dragged to a moment of self-reflection.

It’s still happening.

We are seeing it now in the case of 20-year old swimmer, Shayna Jack who has tested positive to a banned substance. The moral hysteria may have been toned down a touch since Newlands but there is still a slavering for rough justice amid dismal arguments based on false equivalences.

Australia’s former Race Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, Tim Soutphommasane chipped in on Twitter: “So if Jack in the future wins a medal, will Aussie swimmers decline to take to the podium with her?”

So if Jack in the future wins a medal, will Aussie swimmers decline to take to the podium with her? https://t.co/J1FNlrlHOs

— Tim Soutphommasane (@timsout) July 28, 2019

The tweet referred to Mack Horton’s refusal to stand at the podium when Sun Yang won two gold medals at the FINA world swimming championship in Gwangju, South Korea.

The tweet wasn’t just a crass dismissal of Jack’s rights to due process. It insinuated issues of race and nationalism, and childish claims of hypocrisy.

Jack is a young athlete facing the biggest challenge of her life. I don’t know the circumstances under which she tested positive to a banned substance and neither does Soutphommasane.

The problem is that our country is being pulled around by trout mouths with angry fingers dancing over keyboards. Quick to judge and judge harshly, they dismiss empathy and the best of all human responses, forgiveness.

Steve Smith shouldn’t have to make a magnificent century against the odds to be redeemed in our eyes. Forgiveness should have been offered genuinely at the time he needed it most. All the same I am very glad he did.