Times like these don’t come along that often in Australian cricket; the underarm delivery, the cash for pitch reports, the diuretic tablet administered by a caring mother.

Now we have captain Steve Smith admitting that he and his leadership group thought it would be a really good idea to deliberately alter the condition of the ball during the second innings of the Third Test against South Africa in Cape Town.

There is a feeling deep down in my chest, one I haven’t felt as an Australian cricket fan for quite some time. It’s a feeling that could easily be mistaken for shame, if it wasn’t so clearly disappointment.

The old adage says ‘it’s not cheating, unless you are caught”. With Cameron Bancroft caught red-handed shoving “sticky tape” into his underpants, Smith cleverly adapted that adage to suggest that it’s not cheating, if it doesn’t work.

“Obviously it didn’t work, the umpires didn’t see it change the way the ball was behaving or how it looked or anything like that, so it was a poor choice and deeply regrettable our actions.

“We’ve seen the ball reversing quite a lot throughout this series and our ball just didn’t look like it was going to go. That’s a mistake on our behalf again. It’s such poor actions and deeply regrettable and certainly won’t happen again under my leadership I can promise you,” Smith said.

Deeply regrettable indeed, that such a poorly conceived plan could be contrived by the leadership group and carried out by a rookie batsman, only to have absolutely no desired effect.

When Greg Chappell infamously instructed his brother Trevor to roll the ball along the pitch, depriving New Zealand’s Brian McKechnie the opportunity to hit a match-winning six, it worked. There were no last ball heroics from McKechnie, Australia won, let’s celebrate.

When Shane Warne and Mark Waugh accepted payments from a bookmaker for reports on the condition of pitches they were about to play on, it worked. The bookmaker was better informed and able to set his market for that game, based on how the wicket might play. If the pitch was a complete road he could up the odds offered for the toss-winning captain electing to bowl first. If it was a green top, he could tighten the odds for the same bet.

When Shane Warne’s mum slipped him a diuretic tablet because she thought he was looking a bit rotund in his whites, it worked. Not only was it the beginning of the new, leaner, meaner Warne, but any steroids he might have been taking to speed up his recovery from surgery were completely masked as an “unexpected” side benefit. Brilliant, Warne used the short ban to work on his weight problems and his injury and came back better than ever.

Smith went on to explain that he too was deeply disappointed with the ball tampering effort.

“Hopefully we’ll learn something from it. I’m embarrassed, I know the boys in the shed are embarrassed as well, and I feel for Cam as well. It’s not what we want to see in the game, it’s not what the Australian cricket team’s about.”

Clearly, if you are going to alter the state of the ball for your own benefit and risk tarnishing your sport and the entire country you represent, then you have to do it properly. Bancroft insists the yellow item he was rubbing on the ball was a piece of extremely sticky tape. How it slipped in and out of his pocket so easily is a complete mystery and we can only assume his nether regions are completely devoid of hair or the tape is still down there.

The tried and true methods over the years have involved bottle tops, sand paper, and lollies. Sand paper makes a lot more sense than sticky tape. To bring on reverse swing early, you have to really rough up one side of the ball and load it up with sweat and spit. Sticky tape with “some granules from the rough patches on the wicket” stuck to it is just not going to cut it.

 

Cricket Australia is undertaking a full investigation of the incident. There are rumours emerging from the Australian camp that Smith has been suffering dizziness and headaches since he was smashed by Kagiso Rabada’s shoulder in the previous Test. We can only hope that Smith was not in the right frame of mind when he hatched this ridiculous plan.

If the doctors do clear him of any lingering head injury, he and his leadership team should be sent home to Australia. He has tarnished his own name and that of Australian ingenuity. I suggest a shopping trip to Bunnings to look at the new Ryobi range.