Cricket

[sprintcyclist]

Australia head coach Darren Lehmann slammed the "disgraceful" behaviour of some spectators in Cape Town after David Warner was involved in a heated exchange on day two of the third Test.

Cricket Australia lodged a formal complaint with Cricket South Africa on Friday after claiming several visiting players were subjected to abuse about their wives and partners while Warner was singled out again as he made his way back to the pavilion following his dismissal.

A security official attempted to step in when the man continued to aim verbals at Warner before the opener headed up to the dressing room.

Lehmann said: "I think it's been disgraceful. You're talking about abuse of various players and their families and personal abuse.

"It's not on at a cricket ground anywhere around the world, not just here. It shouldn't happen. You can have the banter, that's fine...banter is good-natured and fun by crowds. But they've gone too far here.

"We've written to Cricket South Africa. Cricket Australia have done that - we'll see their response, but it's been poor. We'll see what happens. Hopefully something."

Former Australia batsman Lehmann said he has never experienced the sort of abuse about players' families or other halves that his side have faced in this series.

"Not on this level mate, no," he said. "We accept it all around the world, but as soon as they cross the line and they talk about players' families the whole time...it's just not on.

"There have been various incidents throughout the Test series but this one has taken the cake. It has gone too far with the crowd here and they've got to be better than that when they're coming to international arenas to watch a game of two quality sides playing against each other.

"They go hard on the ground, there's no doubt about that, but off the ground you don't expect that when you're leaving the ground or you're having a go at someone's family. It's just disgraceful."

Australia were 245/9 in reply to South Africa's 311 went stumps were drawn due to bad light, Morne Morkel (4/87) taking his 300th Test wicket.

http://www.sportingnews.com/au/cricket/ ... ibxeykpdv2

[sprintcyclist]

We have no hope

sa 294 ahead, 5 wickets in hand, 2 full days to go

[Rorschach]

BALL TAMPERING....

otherwise known to normal people as CHEATING!!!!

Steve Smith apparently knew about it, and he said it was a Leadership Group decision.... well, then bye bye Smith and Co. Thanks for tarnishing our reputations even more.

[Rorschach]

This just published, echoes my previous thoughts on it.

Ball tampering episode the worst Australian captaincy crisis since underarm incident
By Chris Barrett
25 March 2018

Cape Town: As was the case most famously with Richard Nixon, it can be the cover-up as much as the crime that brings you down.

This is not Watergate, but the disgraceful turn of events at Newlands will inevitably acquire the suffix that other modern cricket controversies have, from Monkeygate to Homeworkgate.

For a while on Saturday afternoon here it was destined to be forever known as Sandpapergate.

Then it emerged, via the confession of Cameron Bancroft and Steve Smith, that it was actually a small strip of yellow tape that the Australian opener had used on the ball and then hidden down his drawers. Tapegate, then.

Whatever the label, this is a shameful chapter in Australian cricket and there must be consequences.

Make no mistake, it is the biggest firestorm confronting an Australian captain since Greg Chappell told his brother Trevor to bowl underarm against New Zealand in 1981. Smith will do well to survive it.

Bancroft will be punished by the International Cricket Council - he has accepted a charge and may well be suspended from the fourth Test next week - but responsibility runs well beyond the West Australian opener, playing in only his eighth Test.

An apologetic Smith owned up to being behind the ploy, along with other senior players. He wouldn't name the co-conspirators but in the past others in the so-called leadership group have included vice-captain David Warner, fast bowlers Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon.

"This is a bad look for Australian cricket," said Allan Border on the SuperSport commentary. "Certainly, it will go all the way through to Cricket Australia. The directors will get involved. It's that serious."

Cricket Australia chairman David Peever is on his way back from Cape Town after taking in some of the match. There will be hell to pay when he touches down.

What took place at the foot of Table Mountain was dumb and deplorable in equal measure.

The dumb first. There are 30 broadcast cameras watching the players' every move here, when they're not zeroing in on women in the crowd, as they tend to do in these parts.

It was not the match officials who discovered Bancroft trying to rough up one side of the ball, and then attempting to disguise the whole thing by putting the tape down his pants. The whole episode was beamed around the world, accompanied by the disbelieving remarks of commentators.

How did they think they could get away with it?

Then there is the deplorable. Questions must go right to the top about the whole team's culture when such a plan can be devised on the hop and there is no one around to put a stop to it.

The culture of the team is Smith's domain, but also that of coach Darren Lehmann, even if the captain insists that he wasn't involved.
The Australian team's image, at home and abroad, has taken a battering as a result of displeasure about how they carry themselves on the field, with sledging and the rest. But while they can make an argument that the banter is part of the game, the same can't be said for premeditated cheating.

Whatever sympathy they had over the disgraceful taunts about players' wives and partners that have been emanating from members of the crowd here has gone out the window.

The reason the Ausralians turned to such under-handed tactics was because there hadn't been as much reverse swing available to Australian the bowlers as they would have liked with a square that is much more green than in Port Elizabeth and Durban. And with South Africa so far ahead in the game, they were desperate for the ball to do something to assist their endeavours.

After they were sprung, Smith spent as long as 30 minutes off the field in the afternoon, to the point where Warner, taking charge, had to make a call to review an umpire's decision.

Later, the Australian team cancelled their usual post-play radio and television interviews on Saturday and it was not until an hour after the close that Smith and Bancroft made their way across the field from the dressing room to front a press conference high in the North Stand.

The last time that pair sat alongside each other in such a setting, in Brisbane last summer, they were able to sit around laughing, as Bancroft relayed his side of Jonny Bairstow's so-called headbutting of him in a Perth nightclub.

Both were ashen-faced on Saturday. In the case of Bancroft, who has taken over ball-shining duties from Warner, it seemed to be a case of a newish member of the team getting himself in too deep.

In the case of Smith, he should have known better. He is a good man but his fierce competitive streak, and those of other senior players, has led him to take a step way too far. He said afterwards that even if Bancroft had not have been caught he would have been stuck with a guilty conscience.

The mistake may cost him very dearly.

And whatever happens to Smith, or anybody else in the Australian set-up, it will be something the Australian team has to live with for a long time.

[Black Orchid]

I think the ones responsible should be banned. This move by a few people gives all of Australia's sportsmen and women a bad name.

We are better than that. What an absolute disgrace.

[sprintcyclist]

what a beat up.


sure, if you want to blame anyone for the nothing that did not happen, set the blame where it belongs.
markram, a b de villiers, rabada, morkel

[Black Orchid]

Who are they? lol

[sprintcyclist]

sa cricketers

[Rorschach]

It happened and it IS an ABSOLUTE DISGRACE right up there with underarm bowling... worse.

[sprintcyclist]

you are just being a bit narrow minded there.

Some things are grey