‘It’s just not cricket’: An untouchable legacy destroyed
In a sport that has long been a byword for fair play, Will Swanton shares a nation’s disgust at the Australian team’s half-witted cheating in South Africa, and at their disgraced captain. We look back for The Australian’s 60th.
JUST NOT CRICKET
What a shocking fall from grace for Steve Smith. The cheating of the Australian cricket team in South Africa has destroyed his previously untouchable legacy, made untenable his position as skipper, earned the wrath of the Prime Minister and evoked a nationwide reaction of disgust.
He should be sent home following the Cape Town Test, along with every other bludger in that disgraced dressing room who knew about the ball-tampering plan but did nothing to stop it.
Ditto for the coaches. Nothing in sport causes more revulsion than cheating in any of its forms.
We howl at offenders from other countries and now Smith is rightfully on the receiving end after instigating the single most distasteful episode in the 141-year history of Australian Test cricket.
“It’s a day of national shame,” former Test opener Jimmy Maher said as Smith claimed he was still the right man to lead Australia, despite the stupidity, arrogance and blatant rule-breaking in South Africa.
What now? If an entirely new 11-man team is required for next week’s final Test in Johannesburg, Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland should get on the front foot and make it happen. Sutherland can still do something constructive with all this. He can take a stand.
Malcolm Turnbull telephoned Cricket Australia chairman David Peever yesterday afternoon to get a guarantee of firm disciplinary action. “I have expressed to him very clearly and unequivocally my disappointment and my concern about the events in South Africa,” Turnbull said.
“He has said to me that Cricket Australia will be responding decisively, as they should. It’s their responsibility to deal with that but I have to say the whole nation, who holds players who wear the baggy green up on a pedestal … this is a shocking disappointment.
“It’s wrong and I look forward to Cricket Australia taking decisive action soon.”
What an extraordinarily dumb thing for Smith’s team to do. At the lunch break on day three of the third Test, they agreed on a plan with unnamed senior members of the team – the so-called leadership group – to use sandpaper-like tape to change the condition of the ball. The colour of the tape? Bright yellow. As if that would not stand out enough. Cameron Bancroft used the small strip of tape to scuff up the ball to make it swing more than it should.
Ball-tampering is forbidden in elite cricket, park cricket, backyard cricket, any cricket. It’s in direct contravention of the laws of the game. It’s so obviously wrong that a 12-year-old schoolkid would baulk at doing it. TV cameras were virtually guaranteed to bust Bancroft, which they did in what played out like a scene from Dumb and Dumber. The reaction at home ranged from disbelief to disappointment to frustration to anger.
Smith is no longer best known for his batsmanship.
“I’m not proud of what’s happened,” he said before his predecessors as Test captain, the job described as second only to the prime ministership for national prestige and responsibility, took aim.
“It is premeditated cheating,” Michael Clarke said. “It’s blatant cheating. It’s disgraceful and it’s not accepted by anyone.” Allan Border wrote in a column for Fox Sports: “It’s hard to explain your emotions when it comes to seeing the Australian team doing something like this. You just feel embarrassed and disappointed … they’ve got to suffer the consequences. It’s as simple as that. It’s like any situation, you do the crime you’ve got to do the time.”
Smith arrived in South Africa off a tremendous Ashes series in which his leadership and batting exploits were giving him approval ratings that Turnbull could only dream of.
He could do no wrong. He was making runs. He was winning matches. He was breaking records for the number of broken records. He was sticking it to the old enemy, England. There was not a single blemish on his squeaky-clean image. No off-field scandals. He’d recently become engaged to his sweetheart. He was being feted as the greatest Australian cricketer since Sir Donald Bradman, the ultimate accolade, and he received The Australian’s award for Australian of the Year.
His standing in Australian society, let along the cricketing and sporting realms, allowed him to eclipse entrepreneur Dick Smith, medical researcher Sally Dunwoodie, justice-fighting author Chrissie Foster and nurse Kirsty Boden, the woman who sacrificed her life to save others during a terror attack in London, for the prize. That’s the sort of halo the 28-year-old was wearing.
Until yesterday.
CHAMPION RIDE TO REMEMBER
One hundred things could take your eye. One hundred more things could make you jot down events that were piling on top of one another as swiftly and dangerously as an avalanche. But the story of the 2015 Melbourne Cup had one dominant theme. And it was Michelle Payne. It is hers to keep.
Yes, she was the first female jockey to win the world famous Cup. She is now an indelible part of Australian history. Her accomplishment transcends sport history. Her triumph is now part of the country’s consciousness. Not quite of Cathy Freeman proportions, but breathtaking and critical to the country’s growth nonetheless.
It is one wonderful thing to be the first woman in a Cup history that started back in 1861. But it is even better when she rides the race that only champions can conjure.
It is the quality of the ride that enhances the story. From the jump, she was on the rails. Not hard because she had drawn barrier one. But she conceded a spot to Frankie Dettori on Max Dynamite, who slipped onto the rails ahead of her but forced Joao Moreira on The United States to fall in behind her riding shotgun. From there she held both her nerve and her mount, Prince Of Penzance, together. Finding the rail was one thing, getting Prince Of Penzance to find some peace of mind another.
The six-year-old son of Pentire at times likes to rate his own galloping speed. So Payne sensibly chose to make the most of it.
The Prince wanted to go quick again. But in front of Payne and her Prince was Max Dynamite and around them a field that was unsettled and constantly jostling for a position in a field that was clumping together on the rails in search of the most favourable ground.
Payne had little option but to settle the Prince where he was. Kind hands and a persuasive voice brought the gelding back under her. And so they settled into a rhythm that would allow them to run out the 3200m with a gusto the European toffs in the race could not.
Coming towards the turn and some 600m from the finish, Payne made her Melbourne Cup- winning move. It would mark her ride as the best of the Cup. She eased off the back of Max Dynamite. Payne’s next move would lock the Cup away. She waited long enough into the straight to find perfect balance and then moved off the backside of Trip To Paris. Or more precisely her Prince did. He was travelling so sweetly, so smoothly it was as though the Prince told his rider it was time to go. So Payne and her Prince made their dash into history.
In her wake, horses were crashing into each other as they bullied for galloping freedom. In Dettori’s attempt to get back into the race he crashed his way off the fence some 300m from the finish. Such was the carnage he caused he was suspended for a month and fined $20,000.
Dettori would finish second on Max Dynamite after being completely outridden. And Criterion, who baulked when he desperately wanted to bolt down the straight, was third.
The celebration after the race was like no other. No doubt because the crowd was acknowledging two special moments – the Melbourne Cup victory and the victory by Michelle Payne. While they would appear to be one and the same, they most certainly were not. The Cup is won every year. The year 2015 is the first time the Cup winner was ridden by a woman. It is why the crowd embraced Payne.
There are other wonderful angles and lines to this Cup. But this is the story of Michelle Payne. In three minutes, 23.15 seconds she rode herself into history. It is shameful it has taken so long.
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