Confession : I've never really
liked Steve Smith. Admired his batting , certainly . And his cussedness...grudgingly , when he tormented England. But his manner , his speeches - even his facial expressions annoyed me ; and those theatrical flourishes as he left some innocuous deliveries gave me the pip...
Nevertheless I'm prepared to accept the word of those who do know him that he's basically a decent fellow. One who has made a horrible mistake in embracing the Dark Side and thereby lost his reputation for ever.
Plenty of people more sickened by his (crocodile?) tears and mentions of his family than convinced of his remorse , even after his press conference. I don't applaud it either ; but I do think he's genuinely shocked by the enormity of what he's done - or allowed to be done - as well as self-servingly concerned for his personal losses.
So how did he come to this ? My theory is that it was a variant of the old "boiling frog" business...
Australian cricket has - as The Professor points out elsewhere - undergone quite a change over recent years. Always the Aussies played hard (think Warwick Armstrong) but predominantly with honour : Miller , Lindwall , Benaud...gentlemen to the core. The moderns have been a bit different : mostly fair I think ; but always ready to take advantage if they could of stirring through the press , sledging on the field...Steve Waugh and his mental disintegration indeed. I could do without it ; but it was bearable...especially when they didn't win
But I think it went up a notch after the humiliations suffered in recent years in India and England ...the debacle around the Mickey Arthur coaching regime etc...Darren Lehmann was brought in to both bring back an old fashioned larrikin approach and also a harder edge...and Smith became his disciple. Warner was already one ready to push the envelope. The drs business in Bangalore was not really too awful in itself ; but it pointed to a growing attitude that
all is fair in love and war : rather forgetting that cricket is neither.
In SA there was a lot of pressure on : the series was being played in acrimonious style and the Aussies felt aggrieved over a couple of things . Losing a match ; and the idea that they simply had to do something - anything ! - to get back into the contest took hold...
When you are thinking that you have to win , literally at all costs , it isn't perhaps that hard to take a step you might never have considered in the cold light of day. The press conference when Bancroft was caught showed very clearly that Smith
really didn't think his men had done anything very wrong.. He actually thought of it all on a par with - say , not walking for an edge ...rather than claiming a catch that you knew very well had bounced.
The slippery slope. He knows now. I leave penalties to others but he certainly must never lead his team again. That and the loss of his reputation - never mind the IPL millions - has visited karma on him in the most appropriate manner.
But yes , I am a bit sorry for him.