Steve Smith returns to South Africa: Between the deed and the redemption falls the shadow

So Steve Smith was ‘traumatised’ at the reaction to his act of cheating in a Test match. Australia are in South Africa for their first Test series after the incident known as ‘sandpapergate’. On their last tour in 2018 Smith was captain and had a role in using sandpaper to tamper with the ball in violation of the laws of the game.

Smith’s vice-captain David Warner was banned too; there has been an interesting narrative since. When Smith returned to the crease post-ban, he made 144 and 142 in the Edgbaston Test despite relentless booing and hostility from the English crowd. He finished with 774 runs in the series, a tale of guts and gumption. Was it the start or the end of redemption?

In the same series, Warner made 95 in 10 innings, being dismissed seven times by Stuart Broad. But he later made an unbeaten 335, the highest score by an Australian against Pakistan. According to Geoff Lemon, who wrote a book on the sandpaper story, “Public opinion firmly settled on Warner being the criminal and Smith the innocent bystander.”

Smith, who has the best average among players with over 10,000 Test runs (and for long averaged over 60, second only to Don Bradman), is a modern great, but this focus on what his action did to him rather than to his team or the game throws light on the gap between self-obsession and self-awareness.

As cricket writer Gideon Haigh told a television channel, “What is extraordinary is how it was done and how easily it was agreed to by the team and how, not unapologetic, but sort of oblivious to the consequences Smith and Cameron Bancroft seemed to be at the press conference.”

That mindset was of a piece with the one that led to the act in the first place, the entitlement and ‘win-at-all-costs’ philosophy encouraged by the cricket board for whom winning led to greater public interest which led to higher sponsorships. Everything was forgiven till it led to an act that could not be forgiven.

“I was thrown to the wolves,” complained Smith at the same press conference where he hoped to garner sympathy for the personal trauma. There’s something ingenuous in that admission coming from one who had asked a youngster, Bancroft, to do the dirty deed in the hope of avoiding responsibility.

It is not difficult to understand how a cricketer as obsessed with batting (and winning) as Smith can become more human through suffering. And every person deserves a second chance, especially if a debt arising out of an illicit act has been paid. Initially this column had asked for a life ban.

And then it struck me that cricket is only a game, an artificial construct whatever the qualities we breathe into it. And no matter if we feel it represents all the best society has to offer. The artificiality means we can impose upon it rules of behaviour that are ideal even if unattainable in the world outside.

Sport is morally neutral, although the acts of athletes may not be so. That cricket had to tag on a ‘spirit of cricket’ as preamble to the laws is indication that unwritten rules — the pride (and essence) of the game — was being taken advantage of consistently. That says more about the players and the times we live in than the game.

Many international cricketers felt that the bans were cruel, and the so-called ‘Australian way’ had to shoulder some of the blame. Trevor Chappell, pilloried for bowling under-arm to a New Zealand batter to prevent him from scoring the winning runs, had this to say: “(Smith and the others) will struggle for the rest of their lives. I haven’t been able to shake off what happened to me in 37 years. I come up on Google as the man who took the lead role in Australian cricket’s darkest day. It’s a relief I can finally drop that title.” Who will relieve Smith and Warner, apparently the current title holders?

Smith’s reception in South Africa when he returned for a white-ball tour was relatively mild. Still, he knows that crowds everywhere have a ready jeer, a reminder of trauma, at hand. And that has been his real punishment.