On Ball Tampering

The Australian cricket team finally crossed the line. It turned out the line was made from adhesive tape, and the headbutt went straight through it.

This has led to some measured and reasoned national discourse...


...on everything from what actually happened...

...to how the involved players should be punished...

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It's so serious that politicians comfortable with leaving a ten-year-old kid with mental health issues in Nauru detention forever are questioning the ethical judgment of a cricket team.

To be fair, providing asylum to white people in South Africa suddenly seems like a reasonable humanitarian action: eleven are now definitely facing persecution.

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It's so serious that Shane Warne is passing judgement! 

The guy who took money from John the Bookmaker.

The dude suspended for taking a diuretic tablet, which can be a masking agent for steroids, at the same time he recovered extremely quickly from a shoulder injury.

It's so bad that Warney has the moral high ground.

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Personally, as I was saying to a work colleague yesterday, I'm too cynical about professional sport to be disappointed about cheating.

My only hope is that while it was clearly pre-meditated for this Test, it is not systemic. I am confident this is the case. Otherwise, the Aussies wouldn't be so bad at it. There are so many less obvious ways to cheat.

Like, instead of hiding adhesive tape in your pocket, what if you had a pocket where the entire inner lining was made of adhesive tape?

Or just use mints, like everyone else.

There has only ever been one more poorly conceived attempt at ball tampering: