Five years on from the “blackest day in Australian sport“, Australia’s cricketers, and the media, seem to have found an even darker shade of black. The cheating scandal has dominated talk radio, news bulletins and all of Australia’s front pages dominated by the story.
The Australian Financial Review took on the story by talking to cricket sponsors, claiming in its front page headline that major sponsor Magellan “leads outcry” over captain Steve Smith’s cheating admission.
Former captains and players have been readily available for op-eds and TV appearances. Michael Clarke first appeared on Nine’s Sunday Sport yesterday morning, then again on Today this morning. Simon Katich, Brad Hogg and Adam Gilchrist have all made appearances to share their thoughts, and the Daily Telegraph today has an op-ed from another former captain, Ian Chappell, calling it a “dark day in Australian cricket”. As part of its coverage, The Australian ran pull quotes of tweets and comments from Shane Warne, Ian Healy, Kevin Pietersen, Mitchell Johnson and Jason Gillespie.
Of the many think pieces getting a run today, Fairfax cricket writer Malcolm Knox’s pulls the longest bow, calling the scandal cricket’s “MeToo moment”, a reference to the movement encouraging victims of sexual harassment and violence to speak out.
And the prize for the quickest advertiser to capitalise on the story must go to sports compression apparel company Skins, who took out a full-page ad in The Sydney Morning Herald, published on page seven. The ad is a letter/lecture from executive chairman Jaimie Fuller to the Cricket Australia board, calling on it to reveal the details of the scandal in the coming days. Fuller wasn’t afraid to give himself a pat on the back in the letter, with a line referring to “collusion” between the cricket governing bodies of England, India and Australia to take the biggest slice of revenue: “It was a terrible chapter in cricket’s history and, thankfully, on that is now right — courtesy of the work of campaigners, including my own company Skins”.
19 thoughts on “Australian media has absolutely lost its mind for this cricket scandal”
Salamander
March 27, 2018 at 1:24 amThe bottom line is he’s probably going to lose his Weetbix sponsorship, for one thing.
Worse yet is the likely effect on their broadcast rights deal that is currently in the pipeline.
No wonder the media is beside itself.
kyle Hargraves
March 27, 2018 at 1:38 amThe game, once upon a time, the game WAS a game for gentlemen although it attracted any amount of rif-raff during the 19th century (read bookmakers, scammers and hookers) when it was possible to bet on the effect of the next ball; no run, two runs, out, caught, bowled or whatever.
Well we don’t see titles such as Benson & Hedges World Series (one day) Cup or indeed, Chappell-style underarm bowling. Pity the rule had to be changed. The action, among gentlemen, would have been unnecessary because the event would not have occurred.
It is also now, commonplace, to appeal to intimidate the umpires. An appeal was, long ago, a “last resort”. In any event “human error” is part of the game; technology notwithstanding.
It is far from obvious that the team will ever be able discuss role-model topics such as civic behaviour and morality with school children after this fiasco. On the one hand the entire team ought to be dismissed and replaced (but that would cost money and a loss of revenue) but on the other hand the behaviour is no worse that what has been observed among Ministers over the Abbott/Turnbull governments.
Ethics/Morality : it seems to be relative nowadays! The bummer is being caught.
Peter Wileman
March 27, 2018 at 8:42 amIt’s all too late now, but the team should have been immediately bought home and the series forfeited. That others have previously cheated doesn’t condone the actions of Smith et al. Big money in politics, religion, business and sport bring out the very worst in people, and the worst of the worst float to the top.