Baggy Green ball tampering: Bancroft, Smith and the Aussie "Leadership Group"

[cnerd123]

I thin it says more about the general mentality that seems to pervade this country. I don't remember sponsors deserting the South African team when Faf and Vern were caught, or the over the various corruption scandals that India has had. Seems to be very much a here phenomenon.

Also it just goes to show what matters to Cricket Australia is money above all else. It's not the spirit of the game, it's not on field performance, it's not being just and fair...it's all about the $$$. Cricket exists to make money and not the other way around.

 

[Larwood's_boots]

I said this earlier but I'm starting to wonder how much the Pakistanis from the 90s actually were masters of reverse swing and how much was just they were awesome ball tamperers. Feel a bit guilty expressing it because they were great bowlers regardless and my suspicions may be unwarranted but you can't help but wonder.

as a young lad back in the good old days before youtube I read about Akram in a magazine, probably a full two years before I ever got to see him bowl (against England in '96) and was obsessed with him and reverse swing just as a concept. Be heart-breaking to have to reassess it at this point, but pretty damn naive not to.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Reckon it's just platitudes to make it sound like they're looking to alternatives. I'm thinking of making a longer post but it all seems like smoke and mirrors and empty talk about a change, to me.

Major sponsor gone.
TV rights still up for negotiation.

While winning will assist, Lehmann's only way of staying in charge is to push for that sort of change and put his hand up to lead it. It's obviously hypocritical, but I think that the view that winning will absolve any other issues the team has been shown to him to not be true, and probably shaken a key tenet of his philosophy.

He's obviously not the man for it having overseen the team for the past few years, although funnily enough I think that if he'd have been the guy taking over now, he'd be quite good at implementing that sort of environment.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Also it just goes to show what matters to Cricket Australia is money above all else. It's not the spirit of the game, it's not on field performance, it's not being just and fair...it's all about the $$$. Cricket exists to make money and not the other way around.

A bit.

It's also the case that Magellan paid for three years sponsorship, got the year with the best value for money (Ashes - as they are looking more for local exposure than what an Indian series can provide) and then saw a chance to walk away from two more years with less payoff.

 

[NZTailender]

Major sponsor gone.
TV rights still up for negotiation.

While winning will assist, Lehmann's only way of staying in charge is to push for that sort of change and put his hand up to lead it. It's obviously hypocritical, but I think that the view that winning will absolve any other issues the team has been shown to him to not be true, and probably shaken a key tenet of his philosophy.

He's obviously not the man for it having overseen the team for the past few years, although funnily enough I think that if he'd have been the guy taking over now, he'd be quite good at implementing that sort of environment.

Well, not really, because he had to do that when he was first hired, and this is the result of that.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Well, not really, because he had to do that when he was first hired, and this is the result of that.

His unspoken mandate was to bring a sense of the hard Australian team of old back when taking over from Arthur.

The mandate of the new coach now will be very different.

 

[smash84]

as a young lad back in the good old days before youtube I read about Akram in a magazine, probably a full two years before I ever got to see him bowl (against England in '96) and was obsessed with him and reverse swing just as a concept. Be heart-breaking to have to reassess it at this point, but pretty damn naive not to.

Wasim may have done some tampering over the course of his career but the guy could reverse swing without tampering as well.

 

[NZTailender]

His unspoken mandate was to bring a sense of the hard Australian team of old back when taking over from Arthur.

The mandate of the new coach now will be very different.

So in other words, he successfully changed the team culture, but it wasn't for the better.

So yeah, agree he could actually be pretty successful doing it now I guess, but I doubt if they put a call out for "we need someone to make the team more like New Zealand" he would've been like "yeah that sounds like my type of gig."

 

[Adders]

So seeing as Bancroft put sandpaper down his jockstrap will he forever be known as Dick Emery?

brilliant!!

Only problem is it would be totally lost on him.

 

[Redbacks]

CA could really tackle the problem by aiming the change the culture of state cricket too.

If the national team are all fluffy and nice for a few years, old ways will simply return later

 

[Starfighter]

It's pretty much just damage control. Don't expect any long term, concrete change out of this.

 

[cnerd123]

Yea CA doesn't actually want to change the culture. The culture of hypocrisy and double speak is what Australian Cricket is built on. They just want to preserve the face appearance about caring about the spirit of the game.

 

[burr]

This whole 'culture' thing is so amorphous, I'm not convinced. And I certainly don't want Australia to become like NZ, whatever that is. I never bought into that whole 'Baz' McCullum everyman myth. What they need to get rid of is the moralising hypocrisy. I don't want Warner telling other nations and players how to behave when he's the biggest **** around. On the other hand, I certainly don't think you'd find Pat Cummins out in front of a night club at 2am punching blokes in the head. Basically, every country has it's *****, but I'm extremely dubious about efforts to undergo some transformative 'cultural' change. Just treat opponents with a basic level of decency and respect. It's not that hard.

 

[quincywagstaff]

David Warner's tenure as Vice-Captain is making Ben Stokes in the same role look not so bad.

 

[quincywagstaff]

Re: Lehmann, while I am very surprised he's still in the role him being the one to lead a changed culture within the Australian team isn't a bad idea in theory. If there's even one minor incident during the remaining part of his tenure than the pressure will be on him like a ton of bricks; especially in this home summer where the focus from the media will be enormous on those issues.

But it does highlight still how cliquey Australian cricket still is; as was observed on radio today, if Mickey Arthur was in the same position (or any non-Aussie person) does anyone seriously believe he would still be in the job?

 

[Athlai]

For the record McCullum was "Australian" in attitude to New Zealanders.

 

[Borges]

How much time do they have to file an appeal?

 

[quincywagstaff]

I think it's 7 days.

 

[Borges]

Thank you!

 

[Spark]

David Warner's tenure as Vice-Captain is making Ben Stokes in the same role look not so bad.

Ben Stokes did nothing wrong though /georgedobelltakes