‘I am ashamed to be an Australian’

Mark Jeffreys, a sports writer from Brisbane who has worked in the UK for 28 years, believes that although the ball tampering was not a big deal in itself, the PR fiasco afterwards and the behaviour of the team in general has been appalling

Steve Smith, Cameron Bancroft and David Warner did a lot more than blow the Baggy Green cap to smithereens. They exploded the myth that Australians play hard but fair. In reality, Aussies are no more righteous than any other cheating nation that has pushed the boundaries in the pursuit of glory.

Their cries of angst and shock when standards slip did not draw sympathy, but ridicule. And, believe me, this was a long time coming for a cricket team that lost my affection many moons ago before Bancroft became an on-field DIY expert.

Australians have a deluded notion that they have world-exclusive rights to upholding the true traditional values and gamesmanship that once made sport such a joy to watch – and when something goes wrong there is a collective outpouring of grief and amazement that something so sinister should unfold in their own backyard.

They are so frustratingly insular and so far removed from the real world that it beggars belief. They live in the security of their own cocoon, only obsessed by what happens at home and oblivious to the rest of the world and the issues that really count. Any news service other than the ABC's will tell you that much. And their sporting standards have sunk both on and off the field. 

The trouble is these days that when they get preaching about honesty and values, no one really cares. It just leaves them as sitting targets for the rest of the modern world that they surely were last week.

Maybe it is a 28-year detachment from the country where I was born and raised that leaves me as cold as the Beast from the East that recently hit the UK. But, certainly, not for the first time, Australian sport – and especially cricket – has left me numb.

Where once there was banter and Adam Gilchrist, now there is the vilest kind of sledging led by the vociferous and distinctly unlikeable Warner.

^{Smith and Warner have accepted their 12-month bans}

And to cap it all off Australian selector and former international Mark Waugh dropped the bombshell that the current team are no worse than their predecessors. Really? God help us.

"I might be missing something, but I don't see this team as any different as any other team from previous eras," he said.

He went on to insist that all three would be selected again once their bans were up because "everyone makes mistakes".

When it all broke last week I could have easily handed in my Australian passport. And now hearing that utter nonsense from Waugh may have me down the Home Office this morning. I have never felt less sentiment towards an Australian side over a laughable ball-tampering affair blown out of all proportion by a country that thrives on the 'insignficant' and is devoid of culture.

This was not about ball tampering – it was about principles, standards and fairness that the Aussies bang on about so much. They lost all three in one fell swoop. For the team’s collective behaviour in recent times, I really hope that Smith, Warner and Bancroft rot in sporting hell, never again given the chance to embarrass. Stuff Waugh.

I'm sure even as I write this the public mood will eventually swing to sympathy – that their punishment was too stiff. But if the Australians do pride themselves on setting the benchmark for fair play, they should be gone forever. If they are not then the Aussies are hypocrites.

Australia's lightweight Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says that the ball-tampering episode has been "a shocking affront to Australia". No Mr Turnbull, an affront to Australia is the way your country has treated its Aboriginals for 200-odd years, which still runs deep today. An Australian official telling the BBC that the ball-tampering was a 'tragedy' just aggravated matters. A tragedy, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is "an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe", and unfortunately ball-tampering, despite what the Aussies may think, does not quite fit the bill.

^{Tim Paine has called upon the team to change its culture}

Darren Lehmann's role as Australian coach was untenable. Claims that he knew nothing of the plot only tightened the noose further because it was a clear sign that he had lost control of the dressing room. The tears that flowed from his reddened eyes were from the realisation that the despicable on-field antics associated with the Australian cricket team in recent years had prospered on his watch. Cricket Australia are just as culpable.  

As for Smith, Warner and Bancroft, they deserve no second chance. Not for ball tampering, which, Mike Atherton will testify, has gone on through the ages, but for lacking the intestinal fortitude of past heroes to come clean – heroes who had laid the foundations integral to the integrity of a new sporting nation.

Lying is inexcusable but lying badly is just foolhardy when there is no hiding place for such weak individuals. The trio could have at least salvaged an ounce of respect if they had confessed openly to cheating and conceded that their judgement was clouded in the cause of winning at all costs. That, in their desperation, it was the only way to peg back a rampant South Africa team who were far superior. End of story. 

But instead they opted for a PR-orchestrated sorry, tearful apology for a premeditated plan to outlandishly cheat in the full glare of the world – it was akin to belting someone up in the shadow of a CCTV camera and expecting to get off scot-free. 

Crying after the act made both Smith and Warner look pathetic and spineless and was a PR disaster. As good a player as Smith appears to be, he should never be allowed back for that reason alone. He will be remembered not as the world's No.1 batsman but as a cheat, liar and the least popular Australian captain of all time. And, after Michael Clarke that takes some doing.

Good riddance to Warner, too, and the infamy of the scandal will be all Bancroft will be able to recall when he reflects on the merits of his sorry career in old age.

As for 'Boof' Lehmann, that joyous Ashes triumph must now feel so distant.

^{Bancroft was due to play for Somerset this summer}

So the biggest thing to come out of all this mess is that Australian sport is light years away from where it wants to be.

The Australians' reputation has been ripped up and spat out by a clueless, arrogant, dishonest bunch of players that would appall Richie Benaud if he were alive today.

Australian cricket will never recover from this and, ultimately, the problems run a lot deeper. Maybe it is time for Australia to finally take stock as a nation but I fear that whatever measures are put in place by Cricket Australia the situation is irretrievable. 

Cricket Australia has allowed player power to rule. If they had taken a stand against their Test players over the rights issues before the last Ashes series then that would have been a momentous step in stopping the arrogance that led to the South Africa saga.

Just maybe Australia is also no longer the nice place it portrays itself to be – brilliant one day, perfect the next. Whatever, no Aussie can defend their cricket team. (Mark) Waugh is definitely missing something.

Warner, Bancroft and Smith are just the tip of the iceberg in a country that can no longer boast excellence on and off the field in any of its box-office sports on the international stage. What have you got to say about that, Mr Turnbull?

Last week I was ashamed to be Australian – and I'd put money on not being the only one who felt that way.