A Message to Cricket Australia

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For those of you that know me, you will know that sport has no place in my life.

But even for someone who is not interested in sport, you cannot hide from that fact that Australia recently got caught cheating in a test cricket match. As someone who is not interested, informed or in the slightest way affected by this, I feel that it puts me in the ideal place to give a message to Cricket Australia.

Dear Cricket Australia, YOU IDIOTS!

While this is quite clearly the fault of the individual who cheated, the captain who let him and the coaches who allowed this to happen, it has to be asked, what kind of culture do you have that allows this idea to be entertained, let alone acted upon?

The sport itself is synonymous with fair and professional behaviour. If something is off kilter, it is commonly said, “Well that’s just not cricket.” We aren’t talking about underarm bowling or aiming the ball at the body of the player, we are talking about sanding the cricket ball down in front of at least 10 TV cameras. How stupid do you have to be to do this in front of that many cameras and use fluro yellow paper to do it?

Is the pressure to win that great? Is your need for money that huge? Are your ratings dropping that much?

How long do you think it will take to recover from this? Our New Zealand friends STILL talk about bowling underarm.

I suspect someone will end up as a scape goat, the media will over analyse what happened to them growing up, it will be declared a one off, aberrant occurrence and it will get swept under the carpet.

OK

But you have to ask yourself, as an organisation, what signals have we sent that would in any shape, manner or form indicate that this would be ok? What can Cricket Australia do to ensure this doesn’t happen again?

If I was a sponsor of Cricket Australia or any of the independent players, I would seriously be considering my investments at this time. (Can I humbly suggest you consider investing in the arts?)

And you, dear reader, what about how you and your business operate? What is your culture like? No-one is perfect but it is important to remember that we reap what we sow.