Is #MeToo the new -gate? As you know, the final syllable of Watergate has long conferred instant gravitas on any scandal, from major political skulduggery to the suspected theft of a yoghurt from your office fridge. The -gate suffix automatically invests whatever it is with all the epochal, slightly impenetrable drama of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, and the ensuing presidential cover-up thereof. Inevitably, then, the business of Australia cheating in the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town was instantly branded Tampergate by many (despite Tampergate itself having had a previous run-out in the storied history of New England Patriots scandals).

But perhaps the changes are finally being rung, because I have since read that this is “cricket’s #MeToo moment”. If this means that a load of pundits are going to spout thundering condemnation of the crime, even though many of them have sinned in similar ways, then I guess the comparison is pretty spot‑on.

Smith and Warner banned for a year by Cricket Australia for ball tampering Read more

Ditto if it means that a lot of people who must have known are going to say they didn’t. If, however, that wasn’t what was meant … well, I don’t yet know what precise form “cricket’s #MeToo moment” is going to take, but I want to say right now that I will be here for every bathrobed, damage-limiting, mostly hypocritical second of it. I’d like my first “we must rid our industry of this scourge” lecture from Australia’s coach, Darren Lehmann, please.

For now, and several days into the affair, it is fair to say that the drama remains simultaneously both high and also never very far from tipping into bathos. On Tuesday, reports that vice-captain David Warner had left the Australia team’s WhatsApp group chat were treated with a straight-faced reverence one might reserve for the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. (And yet, it was still not referred to formally as the “leadership group chat”, which feels a bit of a missed opportunity.)

For some, this was the sign that the mushrooming crisis had “turned nuclear” – a reminder that if we are going to allow the unfettered proliferation of WhatsApp accounts, we must expect rogue actors to deploy them. Warner was unironically described as having “gone rogue”, and there were reports that the players were turning on each other in scenes only someone speaking Australian as a second language would dub Reservoir Dags.

Swift and severe punishment for Smith and co but questions remain | Andy Bull Read more

It’s all good content, in the parlance of our times, but given this is in significant part a tale of the dangers of Australia’s unfettered self-regard, perhaps this sorry tale gives the media reckonings of their own to face. Almost any media outlet’s coverage will reflect the outrage of its readers or viewers – but too often it fans it. Can it really be only three months since Australia’s Channel Nine produced a baseless accusation of ball-tampering against England’s Jimmy Anderson and then spent what felt like an entire Ashes Test covering it? Perhaps a “spirit of cricket coverage” code might be a useful addition to the canon in the wake of this business.

If there was a culture of somewhat witless impunity within the Australia set-up, maybe it was partly enabled by what we might call the mind-games-industrial-complex that has absorbed Australian cricket. This is the thing where certain members of the sports media act like they’re playing for Australia, even though they are – and I’m going to get technical here – not. Of course, this has long been the case with the England football team, where the older and unfitter certain hacks and pundits are, the more convinced they are that in some ineffable but very real sense they are playing for their country when it comes to the big tournaments. At least till it goes wrong in the round of 16, at which point they are taking footballers down for their country.

I can’t help feeling there is something of this now in the absolute howling outrage of some of the Australian punditocracy, who seem as late to various realisations as Lehmann currently is to writing his resignation letter. Plenty of people who commentated as though Australia were unimpeachable are now at the front of the queue to impeach them.

As for the players, if only they had heeded the advice often given to writers of other fictions: show don’t tell. Don’t tell me you’re morally superior; show me. Don’t use media appearances to self-style yourselves; simply allow me to divine it from your deportment on the pitch. Alas, Australia’s failure to show not tell means the world now has an encyclopaedic archive of all their lectures and sermons and homilies on how to play the game of cricket that can be amusingly turned against them in the wake of the cheating in which they indulged in Cape Town. Indeed, most of these interventions are so on-the-nose that they might have been delivered by the Austin Powers character whose name was Basil Exposition.

Cricket gave us hope, a place. Don't we deserve better? (We do not) | First Dog on the Moon Read more

“I just know from an Australian cricket perspective,” ran one on South African ball-tampering in 2016, “we hold our heads high. I’d be very disappointed if one of our team members did that. The rules are in place for a reason, if you’re not going to use them, why bother having them?”

Mr David Warner, ladies and gentlemen. Can cricket really still be in the “total shock” phase of its “#MeToo moment”? As one of the greatest characters in the Australian dramatic canon – Home and Away’s Alf Stewart – was fond of saying: don’t come the raw prawn with me.