ICC Teams of the decade

[GIMH]

I don't think the cheating matters (in the context of this exercise). They served their bans, and still put the performances in to be worthy of inclusion anyway.

 

[TheJediBrah]

something i was considering - most people have warner and smith in their team, and everyone, me included, has smith. but can you in good conscience put in guys who were banned a year for willfully cheating? it's not as if they did light cheating either it was megacheating. unsure where i am on this, and happy to hear arguments from either side

This is very subjective. Don't see why it's any worse than other form of ball-tampering. It didn't even make a difference to the ball swinging so from a certain point of view it wasn't as bad as murray mints in 2005 Ashes. Also still no real indication that Smith did **** other than happen to be captain at the time and not control his deviants. Compared to guys like Faf and Sachin who actually did it themselves so Smith could definitely be viewed as a step down in severity, and you don't see anyone questioning selecting Tendulkar in representative teams.

More than anything these guys have been treated differently because of their punishment rather than what they actually did. If they got the same treatment as Faf did it would have been just Bancroft banned for a Test or 2 and Smith and Warner probably never heard a thing about it. Instead Cricket Australia go full OTT and ban them for a ****ing year so to the casual observer they look like the biggest cheats in cricket history.

 

[cnerd123]

Cheating to win is fine. It's matchfixing/spotfixing that puts them out of consideration