Casual Observers and Innocent Bystanders,
Noted mid-week that SPD Smith, DA Warner, and CT Bancroft have all decided to cop it sweet, "guilty as charged".
So, obviously made the wrong call in these pages last week by foreshadowing "QC's at ten paces on appeal"; they'd taken legal advice that lawyers should not become involved because, you'd have to now suspect, if they did, the whole truth and nothing but the truth might come out.
As it stands, we will never know what went on inside their stoopid heads or in that dysfunctional dressing room.
The quicks and potential reverse-swingers must have known what was going on - as My Spy at The Ground commented "if a ball had been tamperised without the knowledge of professional bowlers, surely they would have been within their rights to complain to the umpires about the condition of the match ball?"
The stand-in captain for the final test, TD Paine, had the ball in his wicket-keeping gloves all the time and was better placed than anyone to see what the cherry was, or was not, doing from behind the stumps.
So, ipso-facto, everyone in that team who handled the ball in the field on that day was implicated in some way or another and were at a minimum "guilty by association".
And for how long had the deceit been going on?
Burbs Warner has been Straya's chief "ball conditioner" for yonks, and the South African's reckon he'd been having a good ol' twiddle with it from day one in Durban.
Remember how Starkers and Hazo took 13 wickets between them in that match, and were simply un-playable from time to time?
It's a harsh view propounded by The Philosopher in the Front Bar down at The Local this week, but maybe the known offender's miserable remorse and humbled contrition was all about the fact that they got caught - busted! - not the simple act of "cheating" aka tinkering with the nut - which, let's face it, has been going on since the dawn of time when the game was first professionalised way back when in Hambledon.
You've gotta think that there must be much more to it if Smiffy - a man who "lives and breathes" cricket is prepared to drop more than $5 million over the course of 12 months - even as the Cricketers' Association claims they've been harshly dealt with and decry the sentences as "disproportionate".
It's fairly clear that Warner has burnt all his bridges and has had his dance card marked "never to play for Straya again" and at age 31 should have the decency and sense to retire [but won't], Bancroft of course will have to live out the rest of his interrupted career as a fully-branded cheat, while there's a chance, but only a chance, that Smiffy could come back and continue his glittering career without the burden of captaincy for a few years yet, even bigger and better than before, Niki Lauda style...
Boof is gone, but not forgotten, and of course the CEO and The Chairman of The Board must go too.
James Sutherland cannot possibly be the direct report for the up-coming so-called "inquiry" into the "culture of Australian cricket", as he was the one who has presided over the whole shooting match and did nothing.
Fiddled while Rome burned.
He's been in the top job for far far too long now [17 years! Big corporations should be turning over CEO's every 5-6 years] and, of course, everything is all now bagarup on his watch.
Sutherland might be a chartered accountant, but good luck flogging the TV rights now, son, with the two biggest names in the game gorn...not a lot to sell there, because where are the ratings in seeing Australia thrashed for a potential viewing audience who hate losers?
[In contrast, just yesterday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India sold their world-wide TV rights to the highest bidder, Star TV, for $US944M for five years].
And anyone remember how much fun we had in India?
God it was good.
Possibly the most spiteful series in recent memory, and of course they all said they were goaded into it by that master law-bender and serial pest Viralrat Kohli Sir.
But what good did that do them?
None.
They lost on the sub-continent, they knew that could beat a Stokeless England vulnerable to 'psych-war' in a canter - and now they've been utterly destroyed on the Veldt.
Look at the winning margin in the final Test of close enough to 500 runs; under normal circumstances the Strayan's could have been accused of "not trying" in the 4th innings - they'd had more than they could take and couldn't wait to get out of the joint fast enough.
So where to now?
The subject of who will be the permanent new Captain is a different bottle of mussels altogether, and will no doubt became the subject of acres of old growth forest newsprint in the weeks and months to come.
In the fine details of the suspension orders, you'll note that the trio "will be encouraged to play district cricket during their suspensions", so they are not banned from all cricket [which is just more hypocrisy in a thing that's riddled with hypocrisy], just domestic first-class and test and A-list games for Straya.
Even though they've voluntarily given the IPL away, there doesn't appear to be anything preventing them from playing in English county cricket this northern summer, and as as we all know, the Poms have absolutely no scruples whatsoever and would be falling over each other to obtain the services of players of such quality.
Even if that doesn't happen, you can still imagine Burbs, Bonkers and Smiffy knocking up double and triple tons all over the shop against suburban bowlers in grade cricket next summer, as the Strayan team struggles big-time to beat Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India at home, and the TV ratings fall away to nothing, and test cricket becomes a "minority sport" available only on pay TV, if that.
SEN Radio in Melbourne must be sorely regretting the time, trouble and expense they went to in poaching Whateley to compete with the publicly poorly funded ABC radio broadcasters.
Oh we'll, just have to go to the ground now for Test matches and join the Sheffield Shield-sized crowds.
There won't be any beer queues.
In the final paralysis, it's a timely reminder that it doesn't matter how great you are, or how low you are prepared to go, you will always eventually be "put out to pasture" or end up on the remainder table...
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
