Cheating Aussies

[AndyT]

To be honest, Bancroft seems to me to be a bit naive and being new to the national team was going along with the requests of senior players in the team, namely the captain and vice-captain. Also as he fields close to the bat most of the time he has ready access to the ball when returning it to the bowler so would be "ideal" for what they planned on doing. In the Australian team the new guy always seems to get stuck at short leg unless they are a bowler.

There was no great conspiracy, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Smith and Warner play for New South Wales in domestic cricket and Bancroft plays on the other side of the country. I can't really imagine Smith and Warner plotting their great ball-tampering escapade and thinking they need to draft in a guy from Western Australia who had not played a Test match before the Ashes to be the final piece of their master plan. I honestly don't think Smith and Warner have the combined brain power to plot anything that elaborate. They used bright yellow tape to tamper with the ball on a cricket field flooded with TV cameras. Geniuses they are not.

The ball-tampering was pre-planned, that much is obvious from the words of those involved and I seriously doubt that it was a one off incident but that does not make it the great conspiracy you are trying to manufacture.

Partly agree, but if a plan is hatched then the type of guy needed to meet the criteria would also be considered and Bancroft fits the bill. He might be "naïve" but even before a ball was bowled, he was quite happy to be front and centre of the Bairstow incident. Granted, they wouldn't necessarily have said that Bancroft is the actual man they need, but they certainly wanted to include the style of player/person who was happy to fit in with the "headbutting the white line" mentality and he certainly sits nicely in that thinking. There were other options, mentioned in previous posts, but Bancroft was their chosen man. He was also quite happy in the Cape Town press conference to suggest he saw an opportunity himself and decided to take it. OK, that was partly to protect others, but it showed what his make up is.

Whilst any theory might sound far-fetched, it can't simply be discounted, given the evidence so far. For example, if I said to you during the Durban Test that by Cape Town, Smith and Warner would have been banned for 12 months, a rookie opener would be in the dock for ball tampering and the Australian Prime Minister would be calling for heads to roll, you'd have equally said how ridiculously far-fetched that notion is.

Bottom line, once something is exposed, it has to be investigated with all theories considered. Mine is simply a theory that certain individuals were selected with their personalities as important as their statistics, IMHO, whilst others were discounted because of theirs.

 

[Tyga]

OK then, you cam keep believing your conspiracy theory if you like. It makes no difference to me.

You are assigning superhuman planning powers to a group of people who are more in the league of Baldrick when it comes to cunning plans.

 

[Tyga]

Smith and Warner have been banned for 12 months. Seems an over-the-top reaction to me. No one else found guilty of ball-tampering has received such harsh penalties.

 

[mattitouk]

Yet the man that supposedly suggested the idea of ball tampering and actually carried out the act, only got a 9 month ban. On the basis of the other two, he surely deserves a 12 month ban or more as well.

Talking of Bancroft, Somerset are under big pressure to drop him for the up coming season.

 

[Perth Bambi]

To think that Bancroft was picked just to tamper with the ball is frankly ridiculous. Next you will be saying when he scored his double hundred the opposition bowlers were in on it so he could get some runs and make the team. As you say it is a long ban but this ball tampering is slightly different in the way it is done (in the way that all other teams tamper with the ball in similar circumstances however there bave been pretty bad cases before (biting the ball)

 

[AndyT]

OK then, you cam keep believing your conspiracy theory if you like. It makes no difference to me.

Glad it doesn't, as your views make no difference to me, either.

To think that Bancroft was picked just to tamper with the ball is frankly ridiculous. Next you will be saying when he scored his double hundred the opposition bowlers were in on it so he could get some runs and make the team. As you say it is a long ban but this ball tampering is slightly different in the way it is done (in the way that all other teams tamper with the ball in similar circumstances however there bave been pretty bad cases before (biting the ball)

That's not what I said, but people can believe what they want to believe.

I just happen to believe that there's more to the selection of Bancroft than purely he is a half decent batsman who scored a timely double century. That doesn't mean he was set-up for this from the start, but what it does mean is that he is the type of character that might be prepared to play ball with those who intended to bend the rules.

 

[MK Shrimper]

Simple answer. Get the players to have a pat down by a big, burly bouncer (neither the bowling action or the 1980's Australian pooch) like they're going into a nightclub to make sure there's nothing dodgy in their pockets like an angle grinder.

Or don't have pockets in cricket trousers. It's not like they've got to carry their tabs around for a quick smoke. It's not the 1970s. Well, it maybe is in Australia.....

 

[Tyga]

Glad it doesn't, as your views make no difference to me, either.

Your dogged determination to cling to a fanciful conspiracy theory is testament to that.

That's not what I said, but people can believe what they want to believe.

I just happen to believe that there's more to the selection of Bancroft than purely he is a half decent batsman who scored a timely double century. That doesn't mean he was set-up for this from the start, but what it does mean is that he is the type of character that might be prepared to play ball with those who intended to bend the rules.

So, in other words you are saying nothing at all. Your conspiracy was that Bancroft was selected for the purpose of participating in ball-tampering but you have walked it back to him being the type of character to bend the rules. Based on what exactly?

 

[AndyT]

Based on the fact that he has.

 

[Tyga]

So, the Australian selectors picked an un-capped batsman after their local clairvoyant told them that he would be open to bending the rules of the game in the future?

As far as I'm aware Bancroft had no disciplinary issues on his record prior to his selection for the Ashes series so his behaviour prior to selection certainly did not indicate he'd actively participate in ball-tampering.

 

[AndyT]

OK then, so what's your theory as to how he ended up ball tampering in only his eighth test match?

 

[Tyga]

Because he was asked to by his vice-captain and was dumb enough to go ahead with it.

 

[AndyT]

So, the sort of person who could be easily manipulated by senior people.

 

[Grayson]

Next you'll be arguing that Mohammed Amir only played for Pakistan because Salman Butt knew he would bowl no balls.

 

[AndyT]

No, I wouldn't be arguing that point.

 

[Tyga]

So the sort of person who could be easily manipulated by senior people.

You operate on the assumption that his actions in that test match were pre-ordained and that this was known by Australian selectors. This meant he was selected not because the previous opening batsmen from the tour prior to the Ashes was out of form but because the selectors were planning to tamper with ball in 6 or 7 tests time and had earmarked Bancroft for the job as, despite his clean record in domestic cricket, he was deemed likely to go along with the plan to use sandpaper on the ball in South Africa.

I operate on the assumption that a player new to the test team was asked to do something by his vice-captain. His captain did not intervene when that request was made and appeared to be aware of the plan to tamper with the ball. The new player stupidly followed that instruction for reasons known to himself. My assumption would be he felt pressured to do what he did by the "leadership group" being a new player and obviously keen to remain in the national team.

I think I know which is more likely.

 

[AndyT]

I'm working on the assumption that ball-tampering has been on the table a lot longer than the Cape Town test. That just happens to be when it was discovered.

Once you work back from there, then other questions come into the equation, one of which is whether Smith & Warner wanted to carry this out in earlier tests and so then they need someone who is a willing participant.

As I said, it might not be true and I've also at no point suggested the Australian selectors were all party to it, but what I am saying is that it can't be ruled out as a possibility.

I accept logic would agree with your view more than mine, but to dismiss mine as nonsense is a bit premature, in my view.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

I'm working on the assumption that ball-tampering has been on the table a lot longer than the Cape Town test. That just happens to be when it was discovered.

Once you work back from there, then other questions come into the equation, one of which is whether Smith & Warner wanted to carry this out in earlier tests and so then they need someone who is a willing participant.

As I said, it might not be true and I've also at no point suggested the Australian selectors were all party to it, but what I am saying is that it can't be ruled out as a possibility.

I accept logic would agree with your view more than mine, but to dismiss mine as nonsense is a bit premature, in my view.

I could open the batting for England in the 2nd test in NZ. It can't be ruled out as a possibility as we desperately need a new opener and I'm eligible to play for England.

 

[AndyT]

Funnily enough, that actually is impossible.

 

[buffalowolf]

Ball tampering has been going on for many years not just by the Aussies ,but every nation including England , there fault was they got caught,any one says English players never tampered with the cricket ball ever must be stupid sorry.When i played cricket i always tampered with my balls ,just to make sure they were safely tucked away in the protective box lol
:smile: