Having already learnt a harsh lesson from the ball tampering incident in South Africa, Cricket Australia is developing a player charter to draw cultural changes required to avoid any such future controversy.
The game's governing body down under, found Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner guilty of the offense of altering the condition of the ball through a sandpaper during the Cape Town Test in March, 2018 and, despite ICC applying the harshest possible punishment of being suspended from a Test, handed out bans of 9 months as well as a year each respectively.
Since then there has been a genuine attempt to improve the ethical reputation of Australian Cricket in the eyes of the game loving public and this player charter is part of the process.
Two reviews into the state of the game were set up in the aftermath, one regarding the culture within Cricket Australia and the other about the team.
Current Captain Tim Paine on Wednesday, September 5, revealed that he alongside head coach Justin Langer are playing key roles in formalizing the cultural draw, which could well be in place before the upcoming Test tour of UAE.
The wicketkeeper-batsman was quoted saying, “It's going to be how we go about it, how we want to be seen and what we are about, That's really important. We are the lucky ones that get to represent our country and pull on that baggy green cap, which is a huge privilege.”
“I think we have to go back to that and just remember that we are Australia's team -- we are not the Australian cricket team. We don't own it, We are just here for the ride and it's important that we leave that team in a better place to when we went into it.”
Paine further talked about the main ambition behind the idea and said, “We want to build a culture that makes people want to be better and produce not only better cricketers but better people,”
“If we can do that, that's the sort of environment people want to be involved in and that culture spreads really quickly through the team rather than having to try and sell your culture all the time.” he concluded.
(Inputs from AFP)
