When Is Enough, Enough?

Warner & Smith - taking it on the chin

The English love to flog a dead horse. Years after Mitchell Johnson, their Barmy Army still sings about him swinging them left and swinging them right. They still have songs about Shane Warnie, long after Advance Hair Studios had him saying "yeah, yeah". They have long, yet selective memories.

thecricketragics was uncompromising in my criticism of the author, the publisher and the printer of Sandpapergate. I have also been scathing of those responsible for formulating the culture in which it festered. Thankfully, the latter are gone but this week, the author (David Warner) and publisher (Steve Smith), officially returned on World Cup duty, to boos and jeers and verbal attack from the crowd at Bristol.

It won't be the last.

In a long summer - the Ashes starts in August - they will be reminded of their failure from one end of the mother country to the other. This isn’t good natured banter. It’s vicious stuff and in Smith’s case at least, this additional punishment somewhat over reaches the crime.

For Warner, they can be forgiven, if not agreed with, for their spite, for despite a few years in which he departed from his previous persona which thecricketragics had applauded, the English can tap a rich vein of boorish behaviour to justify their chants. His admission of psyching himself into a state of hate to play England and his pathetic commentary on a badly depressed and fractured Jonathon Trott, being just two notable episodes. When the Ministry of Funny Walks starts offering tweets, it makes you wonder. Largely, Warner gets what he deserves and one suspects, what he wants.

The seductiveness of selective memory affects the English fans in no more august form than one of their favourite sons, Mike Atherton, whom the media got the dirt on in a Lords Test v South Africa. Atherton, in turn, got dirt on the ball, which seems inevitable in a game played in the outdoors. The problem was, the dirt came from his pocket. Still it was twenty five years ago and for a nation of supporters who can't remember when they had their last bath, that's an awfully long time.

Before Australians mount the partisan high horse over this crowd behaviour, recall the baying for blood the English confront at venues such as Brisbane. It’s not called the Gabbatoir for nothing.

What’s that thing about taking it and dishing it out?

In the matter of Sandpapergate, surely with punishments served and apologies given - in Smith and Bancroft’s case, with believably genuine contrition - it’s time to accede to George Harrison’s doctrine that “all thing must pass”. After all, is not a compelling element of punishment the opportunity for rehabilitation?

Remember when it used to just be about the cricket?