Steve Smith



I think a lot of posters seem to forget that Australian cricketers were born to cheat, always have done always will. Theres not a cricketing 'gentleman/sportsman' amongst them. Hate them as much as the Mags.
 
The best batter I’ve seen in watching forty years of test cricket.. an incredible eye despite moving all over the crease, doesn’t stick to the batting manual in any way. Amazing.
 
Chappers said:
The punishment should have included the ashes. They wound have hurt them more.
Click to expand...

People praise the length of bans the Aussies gave them but it was rather contrived. They banned the 3 of them from relatively nothing series and made sure they were back for the huge occasions of the world cup and the Ashes.

I wonder how long their bans would have been if they'd be caught a bit closer to the world cup? Not as long would be my guess.

I very begrudgingly praise Smith. 2 great knocks but I don't like his style at all and I hope he fails miserably from here on in.
 
All this chat about the ban and the ball change is making excuses and smells weak as fish.

The England team lost, take aim at the Team, the preparation (lack of), the coaches, England Director of Cricket and the ECB (despite what another poster says it is more culpable than other targets)

No one in the England Cricket setup has targeted the blindingly obvious lack of opening batsmen, why they are no longer being produced and what to do about it.

Also, this trick of using a special Duke ball to make things even harder for the tourists is also embarrassing, I'm glad that didn't work at least.
 
Well I can’t abide the bloke with his ugly style and stupid fidgety technique, along with his fellow cheats and the rest of his compatriots. They hate us and love nothing more than to grind us into the dirt. When their pundits, players and former players speak about and to us, you can hear it in their voice and what they say. So why should I have anything but contempt for them.

What they did brought the game into disrepute and I believe they should have been banned for life. Ball tampering is a cardinal sin, I was always taught you just don’t go there. Yet these pricks thought it was ok to take sandpaper out on the field and rough up the ball with it. Not only that but then lie about it when caught and cry crocodile tears in interviews. And we’re expected now to kiss his arse and hold him up as a modern day great? Fuck that.

And now they want us to believe they’ve changed? I’m not having it for one second, the ball changing chicanery shows they’ve lost none of their desire to push the limits of gamesmanship.

The booing here wasn’t just because they cheated in South Africa It’s a reaction to what they embody as sportsmen, as a team and as a culture. Hypocrites and liars.
 
Hope he gets a few decent balls to his head/ribs. Rough him up a bit.

His technique is a very strange one but it works because bowlers don’t know how to play it,

Wonder what he would play like against a good spinner these days
 
MONTYMCPHAIL said:
Sick of the Sky wankathon - he's a cheat who should never have been let back in along with the other 2
Click to expand...

I'd let the other two back in, but aye on Smith I agree. That's the gig with captaincy and cricket - he should carry the can. The other two, Warner especially, took some of his fire imo - Warner being a copper-bottomed **** has helped Smith duck some of the responsibility.
safcpelaw said:
Hope he gets a few decent balls to his head/ribs. Rough him up a bit.

His technique is a very strange one but it works because bowlers don’t know how to play it,

Wonder what he would play like against a good spinner these days
Click to expand...

We didn't really have the pitch or the bowlers to do this last match, but I hope that pitch at Lords is still "sub-standard", the sky is overcast and Jofra has the ball with a crosshair on his f***ing gullet. I'd love to see him knock him spark out.
 
Last edited:
Some of the tears here 😂

Let’s not not forget Smith didn’t actually plan or do anything, he was guilty of poor captaincy by not chasing down and stopping the behaviour when he heard about it.

In any case he was given a one match ban by the ICC yet because of the public pressure applied in Australia they were given the most ridiculously harsh penalty ever served for this crime.

Plus the $5 million in contract and endorsements it cost him.

And Australian cricket has a culture of cheating? By doing that to its players?

Let’s not even get started on Atherton with his pocketful of dirt, or Broad stomping the ball with his spikes (“I didn’t bend down to pick it up, it was hot and I was too tired” says the world-class athlete who could bowl 30 overs on a 40 degree day)

England cricket team, 2005
Marcus Trescothick admitted in his autobiography, Coming Back to Me, that he used mints to shine the ball to produce more swing: "It was my job to keep the shine on the new ball for as long as possible with a bit of spit and a lot of polish. And through trial and error I finally settled on the type of spit for the task at hand. It had been common knowledge in county cricket for some time that certain sweets produced saliva which, when applied to the ball for cleaning purposes, enabled it to keep its shine for longer and therefore its swing." He found Murray Mints worked the best.
The admission came three years after the conclusion of the 2005 Ashes series, in which England beat Australia, 2–1.

It’s a rivalry. You love your team and hate the opponent. Fair enough. But ffs, get off the moral high ground some of you.
 
ozcat said:
Some of the tears here 😂

Let’s not not forget Smith didn’t actually plan or do anything, he was guilty of poor captaincy by not chasing down and stopping the behaviour when he heard about it.

In any case he was given a one match ban by the ICC yet because of the public pressure applied in Australia they were given the most ridiculously harsh penalty ever served for this crime.

Plus the $5 million in contract and endorsements it cost him.

And Australian cricket has a culture of cheating? By doing that to its players?

Let’s not even get started on Atherton with his pocketful of dirt, or Broad stomping the ball with his spikes (“I didn’t bend down to pick it up, it was hot and I was too tired” says the world-class athlete who could bowl 30 overs on a 40 degree day)

England cricket team, 2005
Marcus Trescothick admitted in his autobiography, Coming Back to Me, that he used mints to shine the ball to produce more swing: "It was my job to keep the shine on the new ball for as long as possible with a bit of spit and a lot of polish. And through trial and error I finally settled on the type of spit for the task at hand. It had been common knowledge in county cricket for some time that certain sweets produced saliva which, when applied to the ball for cleaning purposes, enabled it to keep its shine for longer and therefore its swing." He found Murray Mints worked the best.
The admission came three years after the conclusion of the 2005 Ashes series, in which England beat Australia, 2–1.

It’s a rivalry. You love your team and hate the opponent. Fair enough. But ffs, get off the moral high ground some of you.
Click to expand...

Mints lol
 
ozcat said:
Some of the tears here 😂

Let’s not not forget Smith didn’t actually plan or do anything, he was guilty of poor captaincy by not chasing down and stopping the behaviour when he heard about it.

In any case he was given a one match ban by the ICC yet because of the public pressure applied in Australia they were given the most ridiculously harsh penalty ever served for this crime.

Plus the $5 million in contract and endorsements it cost him.

And Australian cricket has a culture of cheating? By doing that to its players?

Let’s not even get started on Atherton with his pocketful of dirt, or Broad stomping the ball with his spikes (“I didn’t bend down to pick it up, it was hot and I was too tired” says the world-class athlete who could bowl 30 overs on a 40 degree day)

England cricket team, 2005
Marcus Trescothick admitted in his autobiography, Coming Back to Me, that he used mints to shine the ball to produce more swing: "It was my job to keep the shine on the new ball for as long as possible with a bit of spit and a lot of polish. And through trial and error I finally settled on the type of spit for the task at hand. It had been common knowledge in county cricket for some time that certain sweets produced saliva which, when applied to the ball for cleaning purposes, enabled it to keep its shine for longer and therefore its swing." He found Murray Mints worked the best.
The admission came three years after the conclusion of the 2005 Ashes series, in which England beat Australia, 2–1.

It’s a rivalry. You love your team and hate the opponent. Fair enough. But ffs, get off the moral high ground some of you.
Click to expand...
I’ve played cricket for over 15 years now and I’ve often taken mints and sweets in my pocket but I’ve never fancied chewing on sandpaper from my pocket.
 
ozcat said:
Some of the tears here 😂

Let’s not not forget Smith didn’t actually plan or do anything, he was guilty of poor captaincy by not chasing down and stopping the behaviour when he heard about it.

In any case he was given a one match ban by the ICC yet because of the public pressure applied in Australia they were given the most ridiculously harsh penalty ever served for this crime.

Plus the $5 million in contract and endorsements it cost him.

And Australian cricket has a culture of cheating? By doing that to its players?

Let’s not even get started on Atherton with his pocketful of dirt, or Broad stomping the ball with his spikes (“I didn’t bend down to pick it up, it was hot and I was too tired” says the world-class athlete who could bowl 30 overs on a 40 degree day)

England cricket team, 2005
Marcus Trescothick admitted in his autobiography, Coming Back to Me, that he used mints to shine the ball to produce more swing: "It was my job to keep the shine on the new ball for as long as possible with a bit of spit and a lot of polish. And through trial and error I finally settled on the type of spit for the task at hand. It had been common knowledge in county cricket for some time that certain sweets produced saliva which, when applied to the ball for cleaning purposes, enabled it to keep its shine for longer and therefore its swing." He found Murray Mints worked the best.
The admission came three years after the conclusion of the 2005 Ashes series, in which England beat Australia, 2–1.

It’s a rivalry. You love your team and hate the opponent. Fair enough. But ffs, get off the moral high ground some of you.
Click to expand...
It’s not about being on a moral high ground, it’s about not wanting to be down in the gutter with the likes of Smith and the rest of the cheats.

How do we know Smith didn’t plan the ball tampering?

Even if he didn’t, he’s as complicit in it as the other two, arguably more so as captain.

Then there’s all the other on, and off the field shenanigans that went on in the last Ashes, ‘Gary’ Lyon’s ‘ending careers’ crack, the way they behaved to Trott, Clarke to Anderson, Broad’s treatment, etc etc.

The sweets stuff is neither here nor there, shining the ball is allowed. Roughing it up is not. I’d have banned Atherton as well.

But after the way the Aussies have behaved over the last few decades and the carry on over Faf Du Plessis, well they’re hypocrites and liars to me when all is said and done and I’ll never give Smith credit no matter how many runs he scores or games he wins he team.
 

Back
Top