There is a feeling that Smith has been handled with kid gloves, and that his actions merit a harsher penalty. I do not agree with this.
Australian cricketer Cameron Bancroft has been literally, and figuratively, caught with his pants down. The amazingly sensitive camera at the Newlands cricket ground in Cape Town picked up his extremely unethical act, during the recently concluded Test match against South Africa, of rubbing the ball with a rough material (possibly a tape) in order to facilitate the difficult-to-play reverse swing.
Cameron pulled out the shining material from inside his trousers and put it back there once alerted by someone from his team. It was a despicable criminal conspiracy. To describe in legal parlance, an offence under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, with Smith being Accused Number 1.
The umpires were quick to take cognisance of this misdeed and gave the Australian captain Steve Smith a dressing down, and he has since been banned for one Test. Bancroft will lose 75 per cent of his match fee.
There is a feeling that Smith has been handled with kid gloves, and that his actions merit a harsher penalty. I do not agree with this. His unprofessional conduct is, no doubt, hugely condemnable. But, being a first-time offender, he deserves compassion and sympathy.
The debate is analogous to what takes place every day in the criminal justice system. Are penalties meant for retribution, or for correction, especially when a delinquent commits an offence for the first time? Harsh punishments do not deter a prospective offender, nor do they bring down the crime rate. Also, as a former police officer, I am aware of how the system is relatively kind to a criminal who has no past record, and whose act under scrutiny was not one which was violent, or caused bodily injury.
I know I represent a minority view. This does not persuade me to say what is popular, and one which appeals to the gallery.
In my estimate, the pressures and temptations that a popular sport offers these days are enormous. The media making a hero out of every player, even for a minor achievement, eggs them on to try to achieve the impossible.
Recall how Dinesh Karthik was recently hailed for his last ball six against Bangladesh at Colombo. How would we have reacted if he failed to connect with the ball, and no run came off it? The pressure cooker situation faced by every sportsman of our times is the principal reason why cricketers and others are driven to misbehave, throw caution to the wind, and believe that the end justified the means.
Football has just now followed cricket in introducing video reviews of critical moments in matches. This is welcome, but if anyone believes that we are going to see cleaner football, they are sadly mistaken. As long as big money is the bait, every sportsman will look for opportunities to use foul means to succeed.
There are no hopes that money will at any time be divorced from sports. When this is the case, why get exercised over Smith’s utterly foolish act? In a lighter vein, he should be punished for his stupidity, rather than for his culpable dishonesty.
R.K. Raghavan, was a CBI Director who supervised the agency’s investigation into the cricket match-fixing scandal of the late 1990s. He was also a cricketer, umpire and radio/TV commentator.