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Inside Outsider

Steve Smith’s Cheating Is Only Shocking If You Don’t Get Cricket

He didn't cheat to win. He cheated to get even.
Image via WikiCommons

To those in the grandstands, cricket feels like a classy sport. There's lots of starched white fabric and an aura of old-world dandiness. But to anyone who has ever played the game at an elite level or captained a professional side knows, cricket is muddy. And winning is basically a combination of rule-bending and psychological warfare.

Sure, it’s easy to get upset about the antics of Australian captain Steve Smith and call him an arrogant cheat. Smith was cheating. But he was playing the game, and responding in a very human way to the context of the match and the pride of his team.

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I've played cricket quite seriously my whole life. And while I've worn blazers over my cricket whites, there's nothing gracious about me or the game. I once dreamed of being a fast bowler like Glenn Mcgrath, Wasim Akram, or Curtly Ambrose. And as I saw it, my edge wasn't my pace—it was my ability to disrupt the psyche of the batsmen through intimidation and the vilest sledging I could think of. But it was never carried off the wicket.

What we did on the cricket pitch was against any objective moral code of sportsmanship. It was against the spirit of the game but it wasn’t against the rules or even the implied boundaries. I’ve seen bowlers piff cricket balls at batsmen, batsmen throw helmets at umpires, wicket-keepers fight batsmen, and fieldsman throw bottles at players on the bench.

And this wasn't just at high school. This happens in international cricket too. There was the bodyline tour, Greg Chappell’s underarm delivery, and the time Javed Miandad chased Dennis Lillee with his cricket bat. And it's not because cricketers are inherently bad people, it's just that they get sucked into the politics of the game and ignite under the pressure of the match.

So what was the context for Steve Smith? Well, during the first test in Durban, Australian players reportedly asked officials Kumar Dharmasena “How the fuck could they get the ball to reverse swing after 18 overs?” Then, Vice Captain David Warner and South African wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock clashed in the dressing rooms over remarks de Kock allegedly made about Warner’s wife, forcing teammates to physically restrain Warner from confronting de Kock.

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Tensions flared up in the second test in Port Elizabeth, with hordes of South African supporters turning up in Sonny Bill Williams masks, a rugby player who slept with Warner’s wife in a Sydney pub before they were married. South African pace bowler Kagiso Rabada bumped into Steve Smith after attacking his pad and dismissing him LBW, he was originally banned from playing the third test, but the decision was overturned, infuriating the Australian side.

Warner was continuously abused by spectators in the tie-breaking test in Cape Town. Cricket Australia issued an official complaint to the ICC in response to “disgraceful behaviour” from spectators. South African batsmen were dominating the fourth day of the match. During the lunch break, Steve Smith had a meeting with his leadership team and Cameron Bancroft agreed to tamper with the ball.

When you tamper with one side of a leather cricket ball, it creates reverse swing, an effect that drifts the trajectory of the ball mid-air, giving the bowlers a sharp advantage. Reverse swing occurs naturally toward the end of a game by the slow erosion of one side and the maintenance or shining of the other.

In cricket, ball tampering isn’t actually that shocking. Mike Atherton, the English captain tampered with the ball with dirt in his pocket. Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi infamously bit into one side of the ball. South Africa’s Faf du Plessis is a repeat offender and in 2013 he plead guilty to tampering when he rubbed the ball against the zip of his pants, while in 2015 he used a mint to shine one side of the ball.

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The way you're expected to play on paper is very different to how you actually play on the wicket, and the phrase “it’s just not cricket” is all too easily thrown around the sidelines by backyard pundits. We often make excuses for the fact that sport is about winning, and when winning gets mixed up with pride, it can corrupt the most rational.

Steve Smith broke the rules, yes, but the overreaction and subsequent witch hunt just highlights the misplaced belief that Australians are above everyone else. And at such an elite level, it just seems naive and unrealistic to ignore human fallibility.

If you happen to break into the mind of the opposition on a cricket pitch it can make them act irrationally. When you insult their loved ones, anger and desperation takes its toll. And that is exactly what happened to Steve Smith.

This wasn’t just a “brain fade." We witnessed the vulnerability of a captain as he experiences how it feels to really lose—both on the field and in his head. Was it stupid? Of course. But do I understand? Absolutely.

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