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Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
FROM the shame in Australia over the ball tampering cheating row, the raging storm among activists calling for the boycott of the ICC Cricket World Cup next year to United Arab Emirates coach’s fury over this newspaper’s description of his team as amateurs, the gentlemen’s game has been reeling in the past few days.
Aussie cricket plunged into a crisis of monumental proportions at the weekend when opening batsman Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera at Newlands in Cape Town tampering with the ball and captain Steve Smith conceded it had been part of a team plan to take on the South Africans in their Test showdown.
The ICC banned Smith for one Test match but the fallout from that moment of shame, which has been described as tantamount to cheating, is just starting with the Aussie skipper set to be stripped of his captaincy amid a fierce media backlash back home which has even seen the country’s Prime Minister condemning the incident.
As if this was not enough for the ICC, a social media campaign calling for the boycott of next year’s World Cup in England and Wales is gathering momentum amid concerns from the activists that a 10-team tournament will have serious repercussions on the game in the long run.
And, in the UAE, the country’s cricket coach, Dougie Brown, a former Scottish cricketer, was not amused by this newspaper’s description of his team, which denied the Chevrons a place at the ICC Cricket World Cup with a shock three-run victory at Harare Sports Club last Thursday, as a rag-tag team of amateurs.
‘’Thanks @HeraldZimbabwe . . . I quote. . . . ‘rag tag team of amateurs’ @EmiratesCricket. Nice use of language to describe us . . . Sorry you didn’t qualify for the WC (World Cup) but, at least, give us some credit for how we played!
‘’Unbelievable way to sign off #CWCQ18. Thanks for all your hospitality Zimbabwe, we enjoyed every minute of our trip @Emirates Cricket @ICC,’’ tweeted Brown.
The coach’s fury emanated from the back page of this newspaper last Friday, under the headline, ‘The Day Our Cricket Died,’ in which this newspaper screamed, ‘’Chevrons commit suicide, break nation’s heart.’’
The newspaper went on to say that, ‘’out of respect for 15 million Zimbabweans, and 15 thousand fans who packed Harare Sports Club to capacity yesterday, still being tormented by the dumping of the ‘Choking Chevrons’ from the World Cup by a rag-tag team of amateurs from the UAE, we won’t show you any picture on this back page from that disaster but just this black background to mourn the day our cricket died a slow and painful death.’’
And that hasn’t gone down well with the UAE coach.
‘’The Herald, Zimbabwe’s most prominent daily newspaper, branded the UAE Cricket Team a ‘rag-tag team of amateurs’ after Dougie Brown’s side ended the country’s 2019 ICC World Cup qualification hopes on Thursday,’’ Sport 360 degrees, the Dubai-based paper which prides itself as ‘’the only daily English language sports newspaper in the world,’’ said.
‘’The headline, which prompted Brown to respond, came after the UAE produced a fine performance to win by three runs (D/L) at Harare Sports Club and gain their first major victory in 15 one-day international encounters over a Full Member team.
‘’Zimbabwe needed to beat either the West Indies or the UAE to reach next year’s cricketing showpiece in England and Wales but were beaten by Brown’s men, while Afghanistan turned over Ireland on Friday to end their chances.’’
But all this pales into comparison when compared to the events unfolding in Australia in the wake of the ball tampering row involving their team.
‘’Australia has been left embarrassed and ashamed after its cricket captain Steve Smith confessed to hatching a plan with senior players to cheat South Africa by tampering with the ball in the third Test,’’ the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.
‘’Smith and Cameron Bancroft, the fielder chosen to carry out the tampering, admitted to cheating after Bancroft was caught on television using a piece of sticky tape to rub dirt into the ball, then trying to hide the tape down his trousers when umpires suspected something was up.
‘’The bombshell broke overnight Down Under, meaning it was too late for the news to grace the front pages of the newspapers.
‘’But news websites and social media reacted with a mixture of shock and shame on Sunday morning.
‘’The news dominated the homepage of The Sydney Morning Herald, with someone on Twitter noting the all-black background: ‘This must be serious.’
‘’Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull branded the actions of Smith and Bancroft ‘completely beyond belief’ and ‘a shocking disappointment’ and called for Cricket Australia to take ‘decisive action soon”.
He said it was beyond belief.
“We all woke up this morning shocked and bitterly disappointed by the news from South Africa,” Turnbull told reporters in Australia.
“It seemed completely beyond belief that the Australian cricket team had been involved in cheating. After all, our cricketers are role models and cricket is synonymous with fair play.
“How can our team be engaged in treating (cricket) like this? It beggars belief. Let me tell you what has happened today from my point of view. I have spoken with David Peever, the chairman of Cricket Australia a few moments ago, and I have expressed to him very clearly and unequivocally my disappointment and my concern about the events in South Africa and he has said to me that Cricket Australia will be responding decisively, as they should.
“It’s their responsibility to deal with it, but I have to say that the whole nation, who holds those who wear the baggy green up on a pedestal — about as high as you can get in Australia, certainly higher than any politician, that’s for sure — this is a shocking disappointment. It’s wrong and I look forward to Cricket Australia taking decisive action soon.
“I think I speak for all Australians in saying how shocked and disappointed we all are. It honestly seems beyond belief. And I have to say, knowing a number of the players, including the captain, quite out of character. But it’s been admitted.”
And former captain Michael Clarke took to Twitter to express his outrage.
‘’WHAT THE . . . HAVE I JUST WOKEN UP TO? Please tell me this is a bad dream,” he tweeted, while former Australia batsman Jimmy Maher called it “a national day of shame” for the country “and for the entire cricket world, really.”
Another former Aussie great, Adam Gilchrist, said he was “stunned”, “shocked” and “embarrassed”.
“Stunned and shocked are two words that come to mind and then when you learn more about it I feel embarrassed and sad,’’ he told BBC Five Live.
“It’s not what should happen. It should not happen. That’s the disappointing thing, it’s not (a) spur-of-the moment decision. It’s not an under-pressure decision where you make a decision and, ‘It’s okay I got it wrong because of a pressure moment’. It’s pre-planned and premeditated. It’s just not acceptable.”
Online Reporter