Ponting sees Good in the Ball-Tampering Bans

Vipin Darwade in Cricket Age, 8 August 2018 ,where the title is “Ball-tampering Bans a ‘Beneficial Shock’ To Cricket, Says Ponting”

Ricky Ponting believes the lengthy bans given to former Australia captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft for their roles in March’s ball-tampering scandal in South Africa have been a beneficial “shock” to world cricket.

Smith and his deputy Warner were given 12-month bans by Cricket Australia, with batsman Bancroft – the man who sandpapered the ball in a bid to aid reverse-swing during a Test match in Cape Town — was given a nine-month suspension.

The issue was discussed during a two-day meeting at Lord’s concluded Tuesday of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) World Cricket Committee — of which Australia great Ponting is a member.

“As a group we were talking about the stance Cricket Australia took and how harsh that stance might have seemed to ban players for 12 months and nine months respectively,” Ponting told at Lord’s on Tuesday. “It’s probably got the desired outcome, a kind of shock to world cricket.

“We have seen ball-tampering incidents happen probably more consistently over the last five or six years and to my mind it’s because little things have crept in that were allowed to get to a certain point and the tipping point was a pre-meditated act that the Australian players took part in South Africa.

“So I think we are all very supportive of the ICC stance to penalise anyone who steps out of line a lot more harshly than in the past.”

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EDITORIAL COMMENT:

From way back in the early 1990s when Australia was THE POWER-HOUSE in the cricket world, Australian cricketers and the boardroom men behind them considered that the “cricket world” was “the “Australian cricket world.” The campaign against the “evil” of chucking and the ‘assault’ on Murali from late 1996 was their doing. Captains Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting,as much as anyone, were guided by this perspective. Verbal intimidation, both planned targeting and off-the-cuff action, was a central aspect of their on-field strategy. THAT is why I advocated “SIN BIN FOR VERBAL INTIMIDATION” from way back in the early 2000s. That punishment –one that would penalize the fielding side in normal instances of verbal assault –has NOT been adopted by the ICC. Its policy remains piss-weak.

This weakness is sustained by the umpires as a body — and that cricticism extends ttothe umpires and Match fReferess from all countries. …. Michael Roberts