Tim Paine

[bagapath]

once smith came to know about the Warner-Bancroft plan before it was executed, he didn't stop them. that, coming from the captain, is encouraging ball tampering.

 

[TheJediBrah]

once smith came to know about the Warner-Bancroft plan before it was executed, he didn't stop them. that, coming from the captain, is encouraging ball tampering.

Not sure this actually happened either, but regardless the injustice you're looking for doesn't exist in this case. I mean ffs Smith was objectively punished way excessively. You've got guys like Faf repeatedly get done for actually ball tampering with no suggestion he would lose his captaincy.

I agree with you that Paine was treated unfairly but you've chosen a bad example as a comparison

 

[Spark]

It's not at all clear at least on my reading of the events that Smith realised at any point before it happened that Warner and Bancroft intended to tamper with the ball.

(But I will repeat, it is also abundantly clear that he did not, at least then, belong within a million miles of a leadership position in the team where he had responsibility over other people. Like I said in another thread the enforced layoff may have actually been very good for him in the long run, not just as a cricketer but as a person, because it forced him to actually have a life for the first time in like twenty years)

 

[jcas0167]

I for one don't believe cheating in a game of sport is a bigger crime than ***ual harassment

Didn't she text him on the morning of the first test in 2017 saying she would be having "naughty thoughts" watching him play? That presumably means ***ual thoughts, not thoughts of him playing a reverse sweep first ball. She was making a ***ual overture towards him. I don't think that the natural response to that is to send a dick pic but in that context it doesn't sound like ***ual harassment. If she had simply wished him good luck and he responded that way then it would be.

The complaint was lodged approx 8 months later after she was facing charges of theft. The subtext is that by this stage their affair/text flirtation had ended and this was to get leverage to get them to drop the charges.

*I'm going on memory of the initial reporting - I don't know if the investigation report was released.

 

[Spark]

It's not at all clear at least on my reading of the events that Smith realised at any point before it happened that Warner and Bancroft intended to tamper with the ball.

(But I will repeat, it is also abundantly clear that he did not, at least then, belong within a million miles of a leadership position in the team where he had responsibility over other people. Like I said in another thread the enforced layoff may have actually been very good for him in the long run, not just as a cricketer but as a person, because it forced him to actually have a life for the first time in like twenty years)

I will also remind people that none of this was actually the truly heinous, the truly morally disgraceful act that happened on the tour. That was the board-endorsed mob that slut-shamed an entirely uninvolved woman to the point that she had a miscarriage.

This, of course, has never ever been officially apologised for by CSA to Candice Warner, acknowledged, or even remembered by the public as "an actual thing that happened".

 

[honestbharani]

the best that can be said is that an CTas investigation said that Paine didn't do anything wrong. for me, there's not really any reason to believe a CTas HR investigation between tassie's second favourite son and someone was on the way out of the place can be treated with any real relevance. HR isn't there to pursue truth no matter the cost to the organisation that it's a part of.

If you leave out the part where the "someone on the way out" was being fired for stealing or something like that.... But yes, if there is a lawsuit, we should probably wait for a judgement before deciding either way.

But honestly, I can see why he had to step down as captain and once he was not captain, I guess it was always dicey if he was the best guy to be the keeper, no matter what PR lies Lyon tried to spin... (heh)

 

[Spark]

If you leave out the part where the "someone on the way out" was being fired for stealing or something like that.... But yes, if there is a lawsuit, we should probably wait for a judgement before deciding either way.

But honestly, I can see why he had to step down as captain and once he was not captain, I guess it was always dicey if he was the best guy to be the keeper, no matter what PR lies Lyon tried to spin... (heh)

Yeah I think the extent to which Paine has already been totally forgotten here except as like a "remember when Tim Paine was captain like, six weeks ago? What a time" ultimately shows just how inessential he had become to this team. He'd done his job but the team outgrew him and it's hard not to get the impression that he was jettisoned at the first convenient opportunity.

 

[TheJediBrah]

If you leave out the part where the "someone on the way out" was being fired for stealing or something like that

I may be mistaken but didn't all this happen years after the actual texts happened, as in she only brought it up now years later because she had an axe to grind and/or needed money

 

[honestbharani]

FWIW, I dont think there is anyway a captain who has been as **** as the players he led in terms of behaviour would not have known what was going on. The narratives and PR spins are just that. The board protecting whom they wanna protect.

Again, I dont have a dog in this fight. I think Steve Smith is woeful as a captain anyways and much better as a batsman/senior player in the side for his own and Australia's sake. But I also see that cheating to win in a sport can be seen as a lesser crime in moral terms (as gray as the area is) than someone basically cheating on his wife. And ultimately, its all down to perceptions.

 

[honestbharani]

I may be mistaken but didn't all this happen years after the actual texts happened, as in she only brought it up now years later because she had an axe to grind and/or needed money

Well, as loosely as I have followed these stories, to me it looks like the story was always out there and some tabloids/journos just decided this was the best time to publish it. I dunno if there is any issues between current CA board and Paine and honestly, I wont be surprised if there was.

 

[TheJediBrah]

to me it looks like the story was always out there and some tabloids/journos just decided this was the best time to publish it.

I highly doubt it. They wouldn't be sitting on something like that

 

[Spark]

FWIW, I dont think there is anyway a captain who has been as **** as the players he led in terms of behaviour would not have known what was going on. The narratives and PR spins are just that. The board protecting whom they wanna protect.

Again, I dont have a dog in this fight. I think Steve Smith is woeful as a captain anyways and much better as a batsman/senior player in the side for his own and Australia's sake. But I also see that cheating to win in a sport can be seen as a lesser crime in moral terms (as gray as the area is) than someone basically cheating on his wife. And ultimately, its all down to perceptions.

One thing that Lemon's book makes abundantly clear was that the abusiveness and nastiness on field was not something that just organically happened and was just tolerated as a necessary evil, but it was actively encouraged at all levels of the CA hierarchy - not just Lehmann too (though he was probably the biggest driver), and that they literally considered it as part of their selection criteria - it was a major reason why Wade was recalled after the debacle at Hobart (yes, they thought that "lack of abusiveness" was the reason we got skittled twice by Abbott and Philander). Once Wade got dropped, Warner was given that role. And it's kind of tragic tbh because Warner had worked genuinely hard to reform himself and restrain his youthful excesses, then the suits at CA come out and basically tell him nah, we want you to be as massive a **** as you can.

But yeah Smith... wow. To say he had no life outside of cricket would be an understatement, he was basically still a teenager at an emotional level at that point. In no sense a man prepared for actual leadership role. That more than anything else was how that infamous presser happened, which is what turned an embarrassing incident that most teams have experienced and accrues the usual slap on the wrist to, like, a diplomatic incident. He simply did not have the life experience and emotional range to understand that "yes we cheated" and then lying about how you cheated whilst saying "sure, I'm the best captain for the job" was, uh, a bad idea.

 

[honestbharani]

I highly doubt it. They wouldn't be sitting on something like that

I read somewhere that they always knew it could come out, so I assumed some folks in the know had been letting them know it could come out any time. Could be wrong. Not sure how it works in the Aussie media ecosystem.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I read somewhere that they always knew it could come out, so I assumed some folks in the know had been letting them know it could come out any time. Could be wrong. Not sure how it works in the Aussie media ecosystem.

That's not saying that the media always had the story. It's just the kind of story that will come out eventually, and the way it did was her basically selling the story for whatever motivation she had

 

[Spark]

I read somewhere that they always knew it could come out, so I assumed some folks in the know had been letting them know it could come out any time. Could be wrong. Not sure how it works in the Aussie media ecosystem.

I believe the ultimate trigger was the woman was about to file the lawsuit Spikey mentioned. But ultimately no journo would sit on that, especially no News Corp journo (which is who got the story). These people absolutely live for clicks and you can bet your bottom dollar that "AUSTRALIAN TEST CAPTAIN ***TING SCANDAL" will get a shitload of clicks.

 

[honestbharani]

Is News Corp Murdoch's?

 

[Spark]

Is News Corp Murdoch's?

Yep

 

[Spark]

By the way this quote from Lemon's book probably tells you more about what the ultimate source of Australian cricket's issues more than anything to do with Cape Town:

'It’s not always such a bad thing to get negative press,’ [CA Head of Broadcasting, Digital Media, and Commercial Ben Amarfio] announced at a marketing event in 2013. ‘In the last twelve months, the NRL has had players assault women, players assault policemen, they’ve had drug, corruption and match fixing issues – the list goes on and on. And yet they’ve just signed a TV deal for over one billion dollars, which is almost fifty per cent bigger than their last TV deal.'

This man is the reason all Australian ODIs are now behind a paywall, btw (and why the incredible Ten offer got knocked back over a paltry $40 million difference out of a billion dollar contract). Mercifully he got fired a few years ago.

 

[ImpatientLime]

By the way this quote from Lemon's book probably tells you more about what the ultimate source of Australian cricket's issues more than anything to do with Cape Town:



This man is the reason all Australian ODIs are now behind a paywall, btw (and why the incredible Ten offer got knocked back over a paltry $40 million difference out of a billion dollar contract). Mercifully he got fired a few years ago.

is this from 'steve smith's men'? any good?

 

[Spark]

is this from 'steve smith's men'? any good?

Really really good, if really depressing. My main takeaways were that (a) Warner comes off as a much more sympathetic figure, though ultimately he was the one who takes the overwhelming majority of the responsibility of the actual decision to tamper with the ball using sandpaper, (b) Smith also comes off as sympathetic but in an honestly kind of sad way because of just how emotionally immature he was and how ill-served he was as a human by those around him at a duty-of-care level and that he was almost a zombie by the time Cape Town happened and (c) Cricket Australia as of 2017-18 was an absolutely despicable organisation, for many reasons, not least because they made sure 100% of the blame fell on Smith, Warner and Bancroft, no more questions please.