Steve Waugh on Cape Town Ball Tampering: “Lack of strict punishment let it happen”

Steve Waugh on Cape Town Ball Tampering: Former Australia captain blamed lenient punishments in the past for the fiasco.

Former Australia captain Steve Waugh has lashed out the authorities for according to him, not handing severe punishments to defaulters in the past lead to infamous events in the sport like the ball tampering incident at Cape Town held earlier this year.

The aftermath of the whole case handed respective bans to the Australian trio of the then captain Steven Smith, his deputy David Warner and opening batsman Cameron Bancroft by Cricket Australia. It was only after ICC (International Cricket Council) handed them with minor punishments like deduction of match fee, one-match suspension and demerit points.

Speaking to ESPNcricinfo at a Laureus event in Paris, Waugh was quoted, “There have been captains in the past who have been done for tampering with the ball and the penalties have been very lenient so there was no penalty for doing something wrong and it was always going to get to the case where it got out of control.”

53-year old Waugh also feels that the current players are insulated under a bubble and ‘out of touch’ of what the normal person thinks. Lashing out at the players, Waugh said that they just didn’t realise how big a mistake it was and what they’d actually done.

“They are in a bit of a bubble and they are protected, you know they are insulated from a lot of things. They’ve got a lot of people around the side that protect them and tell them how good they are and how everything’s fantastic and sometimes you can lose touch with reality and I think that was best summed up when Steve Smith said that ‘we won’t make that same mistake again and we’ll just get on with it’. They just didn’t realise how big a mistake it was and what they’d actually done. So that, to me, just summed up that maybe they were out of touch with what the average person thinks,” Waugh said.

Waugh continued to add that the reason behind the involving in ball tampering remained unclear to him. Citing the then Australian attack as the best on a pitch that was doing a bit, Waugh believed that alongside him many Australians back home found the incident as a ‘shock’.

“We couldn’t really understand it because we had the best bowling attack in the world to start with on a pitch that was doing a bit. Why did we need to do it? It was just something that people couldn’t understand you know and it was a shock to all of Australia and we reacted accordingly

“It was on the front pages for weeks and we saw the emotional press conferences and it was a story that kept going and getting bigger. When you look back on it, it was a ridiculous mistake but it was sort of blown out of all proportion as well, the way it got covered, but that’s the nature of Australian sport. Cricket is seen as almost our national identity. If we are winning and playing well we almost feel good as a nation and when that happened it was like a bit of a kick in the guts for everyone,” he added.

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