The entire saga of tampering of the cricket ball by Australian player Cameron Bancroft in Cape Town, the subsequent discovery—and admission by the culprits—of a conspiracy led by captain Steve Smith, Cricket Australia’s enquiry and the punishment meted out, has dealt a grievous blow to the so-called ‘gentleman’s game’. Is cricket today the most corruption-ridden and the most cheating-prone of all major international sports? As scandal after scandal unfolds, the fan is left wondering about the vaunted sense of ‘fair play’, ‘sporting spirit’ and gentlemanly propriety. The very concept of sport as a means of entertainment has been overtaken by a grim ‘win-at-all-costs’ syndrome and the greed for money.
Although there have been innumerable cases of cheating in sport for centuries around the globe, any misdemeanour on or off the cricket field particularly hogs global headlines, as it has historically been hailed as the game that the good guys play. So, Bancroft rubbing an...
