To ask for someone to explain to me the whole Australian cricket saga?

[ferriswheel]

I am not sporty or interested in sport so dont know the rules and regulations.

Did the guy tamper with the ball? And if he did then how do you tamper with a ball?

Not a huge fan either but...

Captain and Vice Captain allegedly ordered most junior member of Team to ball tamper

Junior member had tape (?) in his pocket (which presumably had dirt stuck to it. Dirt, when used to pick the seam, can make the ball swing more, therefore get batsman out easier)

Junior team member was caught hiding tape down the front of his trousers.

Big scandal as Australia the top cricketing team in the world, arguably, and perceived to be quite arrogant, so lots of people revelling in this drama

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/43552485

Yes, they tried to/did tamper with the ball. Basically the idea of ball tampering (if you are that way inclined) is to rough up one side of the ball, whilst leaving the other side smooth, so the air passes differently over the two sides and makes the ball swing more.

If you are a skilled bowler, you can bowl it onto the same spot every time, thus achieving a natural scuff and smooth side. But alas these boys didn't have the skill/time to waste on that!

And then the second part (without names, as I was terribly bored by then). A senior player told the junior bowler to do it, apparently they have sandpaper in their kit for smoothing the bat. Captain saw they were chatting and suspected what they were up to, but instead of stepping in and acting said to them "I don't want to know what you're cooking up there". Coach said he had no idea this went on.

Young bloke gets caught (banned for 9 months), senior player confesses/caught out (banned 12 months, can never have a leadership role), captain reprimanded (not playing for 12 months, no leadership for 2yr) for not taking a leadership role when he could see they were up to no good. Coach tried to keep out of it, but has also resigned.

What I find most astonishing about this is that he literally did in broad daylight. How on earth did he think no-one would notice him fumbling his crotch whilst holding the ball? He was being filmed FGS!

Thank you! Very helpful. What a dull occupation though, no wonder they tried to liven things up!

In the actual middle of the game?

Not forgetting the ball scuffer pretended it was a bit of tape (when he was caught on a massive tv screen ) then later admitted it was sandpaper.

I don't follow mens cricket but the scandals are disgraceful. DV, drunken brawls, cheating and lying. Gentleman's game my arse.

Cheating Aussies got caught with sandpaper used for ball tampering down his trousers.

Maybe we should ban them from cricket like the Russians where banned from athletics for cheating by drugs. A cheat is a cheat.

And at the press conference that crying stunt was hilarious. No tears at all just completely put on.

The apology was a proper apology at least. None of this 'I'm sorry if people were offended...' bs.

It's the kind of decent grovelling I"d like to see more of when people really, really fuck up.

Agree but there were no actual tears

Vice Captain also racially abused an opposition player calling his sister and mother "Bush pigs" and kicked off when the same bloke retaliated with abuse about his wife. The fans joined in and he has really lost it mentally, resulting in him coming up with the sandpaper idea.

Same bloke who abused Jonny Bairstow (England Wicketkeeper) about his dad's suicide. This is what Australians call "mental disintegration".

The delicious irony is that it's them who are disintegrating. It's costing Warner and Smith over A$5m each.

This really couldn't happen to a nicer bloke, but I do have limited sympathy for Bancorft who was coerced and Smith who is carrying the can as the leader.

Oh, and the coach thinks Asians are "fucking black cunts", which explains the culture they've developed under his tutelage.

Smith's initial reaction was, yep we got caught, let's draw a line under it and move on. Like it's something that happens everyday and can be treated as a normal occurrence

Bancroft is a batsman. As far as I'm aware the bowlers knew nothing about what was going on

To get swing on the ball (ideally reverse) you need the ball to have a shine on one side and 'rough on the other. This will happen naturally as a PP pointed out by a very skilled bowler but also can happen when the ball hits sittings etc during the match.

When a ball swings it means the batter can't read the bowl and has to react at the very last second which is why bowlers who can swing the ball, especially if they can reverse swing gather a lot of wickets.

The interesting thing about this is the reason the cameras fully caught what happened - apparently a commentator who was a bowler himself was very suspicious of the ball acting this way so early (after only 25 overs) and thought it was being tampered so told the camera crew to follow closely...The rest is history!

It has caused huge uproar as it is blatant cheating by one of the best teams in the world by a country who lives and breaths this sport. The ICC have refused to investigate the Ashes tour and has really brought the sport into disrepute

I saw the clip on the news and I interpreted his tears due to "all the £££ I've lost....." in sponsorship, wages, brand deals etc and the behind the scenes gambling that goes on that nobody publicly discusses (for obvious reasons).

or am I being too harsh?

Does anybody know why they haven't received a lifetime ban from the national team?

Personally i don't think investigating the ashes series will do any good. I don't think the result would have been any different, we would still have lost. The matches may have been closer but that's all.
If i remember correctly David Warner started the last ashes series in England on a ban.

Apparently if you rub the surface of a cricket ball on one side with sandpaper or other stuff, it means it doesn't fly straight. Which makes it harder to hit. So a deliberate attempt to damage the surface on one side would give whoever is throwing the ball an unfair advantage - it's blatant cheating.

What surprises me more is the fact that they thought they could get away with it, in a ground full of TV cameras. Bunch of cheating numpties.

Also the coverage about how the guy doing the rubbing (Cameron someone?) is so young, and inexperienced and so on - HE'S 25!!!

It's certainly not the first team to have been caught doing it but I think the whole furore has been more about the coercion of the youngest player in the team and also that David Warner is extremely unpopular (outside of Australia due to incidents mentioned above) so I think the media have revelled in bringing him down!

@surfingwhippet it was the 2013 Ashes he was banned from starting, not 2015.

Ah yes, there was an incident with Joe Root in 2015 i think i was confusing the two

1. a cricket ball has a seam down the middle separating it into 2 halves

2. roughing up one side and leaving the other smooth/polished means the ball moves laterally in the air (called ‘swing’). This makes it more difficult for the batsman to hit it/play at it.

3. ‘natural’ roughing up of the ball through play is expected and means the ball naturally starts to swing after 30-40 overs of play, but teams who are in a hurry may wish to speed up the process and make it more pronounced by deliberately roughing up one side of the ball. This is considered cheating and is called ball tampering.

4. the Australians were in a hurry - South Africa were giving them a hiding, the match was well on its way towards being lost, so captain+vice captain+most junior player hatched a plan to deliberately rough up one side of the ball with sandpaper.

5. they were caught doing it by the cameramen, subsequently challenged by umpires and then lied to those umpires.

6. captain subsequently admitted to everything in press conference, leading the Australian cricket governing body to hand out one year bans to all three players involved. Rumours are coach knew about it and at least two other players were involved but they haven’t been punished. Coach has subsequently decided to resign.

In a nutshell.

@JennyJames
Australia are not the top team in the world, and haven't been for a long time. Neither are they are at any sport.
They like to think they are, and for others to think that, but anyone who knows about sport, knows they're not.

Couldn't happen to a better pair - Smith and Warner, vile pair. Warner thumped Joe Root in the Walkabout!

Such a non story!

You're right arethereany, I should have said 'one of the top teams'