Steve Smith - Ball Tampering [Before & After]

I absolutely love Cricket, Australia & Steve, but more than any sport, country, or human, I love honesty.

I’ve played a lot of sports in my life, but before all those sports arrived in my life, there was one sport that defined the word sport - you're spot on, it was Cricket. I looked up to ridiculously superhuman players - Lara, Warne, Dravid, Cronje, Azhar, Tendulkar, McGrath, Akram. They could do no wrong. All these players, I realized over the years, had flaws like me & you. 

Azhar & Cronje broke my heart when they got involved in match-fixing in early 2000. That destroyed cricket for me.

In February 2000 I moved to Australia. The way people played sport - any sport - was breathtakingly beautiful. Unlike Gavaskar [who played for ‘draws’] & Tendulkar [who played for ‘milestones’], Aussies played to ‘win’ - they played for the ‘team’. It was infectious & impossible not to fall in love with Australian killer instinct.

Then started the juggernaut, helmed by Steve Waugh, & Aussies pulverized everyone who came in their way, barring anomalies like the 2001 Kolkata test, the Australian cricket team was Invincible. And when legends began retiring starting with Warne & McGrath in 2007, I simply assumed their big fat shoes would be filled with new legends. After all, ‘brilliance & character’ were in the Aussie blood. Of course, I was dead wrong [even now no one is minutely closer to Warne], and Australian cricket stopped being invincible. At first, everyone thought it was a blip. But, when the drought went on for years, they knew something had to be done - something drastic. In June 2013, Darren Lehmann [part of the Invincibles 1999-2007 team] replaced mis-firing & out-of-favor coach Mickey Arthur. Five months later Australia routed England 5-0. Invincibles were back. 

Not really.

They did win a fair bit but no way they were the invincibles. The team still needed further fine-tuning. Captain Clarke was the notable casualty & Smith took over the reins as the new skipper after a stellar ‘purple patch’ with the bat. Smith’s purple patch simply refused to die out. Though Australia didn’t truly become invincible, Smith ended up becoming Bradman. 

As I write this, Smith is world number 1 batsman in Tests. As I write this, Smith is perceived as the number 1 cheater in the world of cricket. 

What has he done? Well, had he not spoken honestly in the press conference accepting that he perpetrated ball tampering & instead thrown rookie Bancroft ‘under the bus’ & faked ignorance [Indians/Pakistanis would’ve totally done it], Smith would’ve done - well, ‘Nothing’. 

Now, it’s different. He’s admitted to ‘orchestrating to cheat’ & ‘ostensibly ordering a younger teammate to execute the cheating.’

Everyone hates Steve Smith now. In India, there’s a clamor for him to be banned for life. Every person who can type/speak has typed/spoken something godawful about Smith. 

Let’s put things into perspective. 

Ball Tampering conviction attracts four demerit points, one-match suspension & fine of 100% match fee. In football, a straight Red card for a dangerous tackle results in immediate eviction & three-match ban. Sergio Ramos, one of the greatest defenders in world football, has received 24 Red cards in his career. Steve Smith, on the other hand, has been handed his first suspension. 

Let’s talk specifics - Is Smith the first person to ball tamper? Far from it. Even the Superstars have done it.

South African captain Faf Du Plessis has done it ‘twice’. Entire Pakistan team has done it on lord knows how many occasions. English pacers Broad & Anderson have done it. Even ‘God’ Tendulkar & ‘Wall’ Dravid have done it.

Then why on earth are we comparing Smith with pathological cheats such as Lance Armstrong, Salman Butt, Hansie Cronje & Ben Johnson.

Two Reasons

1.  Big Fish

Australia & Steve Smith - both are collectively the biggest fish anyone can catch together. Almost everyone in the flatscreen era is a ‘closeted sadist’. We can’t get enough of seeing 'Modern Bradman' & 'Bully Australia' going down in sync. Barmy Army has just won the Jackpot. 1.36 billion Indians feel vindicated for hating Aussies.

2.  Stupidity & Honesty [in Three Parts]

The lethal mix of stupidity & honesty has made this one-match ban & get-on-with-it episode into a magnum opus - O. J.  Simpson Trial of the Century. 

Part 1: What on earth was Steve thinking? In a world of 100s of professional cameras scrutinizing every move, did he really think he can get away with it. What an amateur!

Part 2: Bancroft shoving the tape down his trousers - both hilarious & distressing.

Part 3: Steve coming out with the truth in a press conference - accepting that he deliberately tried to cheat. 

Being the number 1 player in the world & captain of cricketing powerhouse Australia stating openly that he cheated. [Fuck me dead, already.]

Here’s my final word 

Steve is a bloody idiot not a fraud because if he truly were a cheat, he wouldn’t have been so stupid to do it in front of 100s of cameras. If he were dishonest, he wouldn’t have come out & thrown himself under the bus by accepting to cheating in front of scandal-hungry scavengers - the press.

Steve, yet again, wasn’t thinking straight - made a terrible call. He undoubtedly deserves to be stripped off the skipper’s badge. What he has done is unbecoming of a captain of Australia. 

But, here’s one question to all the millions - including me - Do we have a right to call Steve a cheat? 

Have we in our amazing lives never cut-corners & bent a few rules to ‘get ahead’?

Think hard.

I know I most definitely have. And anyone born in India, even the most honest, has cheated unknowingly. 

Even Gandhi lied. Dalai Lama eats meat. Ronaldo dives for penalties, Aamir Khan takes steroids. India first PM Nehru had an affair with Mountbatten’s wife. Churchill, a celebrated leader, literally didn’t give a rat’s ass when 3 million Bengalis died of famine in India in 1943. All Steve Smith was trying to do was roughing up one end of the ‘cherry’ to get reverse swing against Invincible AB de Villiers. It doesn’t make him evil. It makes him human. 

For me, Steve Smith is still an inspiration - still Bradman not Badman. Every time I watch him bat, he makes me believe in impossible. 

I don’t know why he did this disgraceful act [apart from the obvious - to win], but I know that he will be back. He’s the Messi [Smith] to Ronaldo [Kohli] - he has to come back. 

P.S. Never kick a man when he’s on the ground. Never kick a man who has accepted his mistake. Instead, extend a hand - give him his bat so he can do what he does best.