Very interesting article in The Guardian today....
(It's from his book so maybe SEB - if so, apologies)
(It's from his book so maybe SEB - if so, apologies)
Alastair Cook: ‘Steve Smith is redefining what is possible as a batsman’ | Donald McRae
The former England captain on Australia’s ‘freak’ run machine, the psychological battles all cricketers face and why less could be more for the future of Test cricket
www.theguardian.com
David Warner, a couple of beers into his celebration, mentioned that he used substances attached to the strapping on his hand to accelerate the deterioration of the ball during a first-class match. I looked at Steve Smith who shot a glance that said: ‘Ooh, you shouldn’t have said that.”
Did the Australians use sandpaper to tamper with the ball before they were caught doing so in Cape Town in March 2018? “Stuart Broad sums it up pretty well and says they got the ball to reverse swing in that Ashes. Why change what you’ve been doing? Why suddenly use sandpaper? People know what was going on. But it’s been the best thing for Australian cricket because they realised it wasn’t acceptable. The win-at-all-costs culture they created isn’t what the Australian public needed or wanted. They’d gone too far.”