does wearing the baggy green mean nothing?

as i write this i'm struggling to comprehend just what happened in Cape Town overnight...

how does a professional sportsman, or sportsmen if we are to believe what's been said, someone who has the honour of playing for our country, someone who has had the honour of being given a baggy green, think it's ok to tamper with the ball?

it's is simply incomprehensible to me that in that position, doing something you love, representing our fair land and being a role model to millions of people, some of them kids, you would risk it by doing something not only illegal in the game but immoral....

i'm beyond sad...

i can't remember a time in my life when i wasn't just a little bit obsessed with cricket...and in the entirety of me being an Australian cricket supporter, I have never witnessed such an incident...

obviously this is an entirely different sadness to that Thursday in November 2014 when Phil Hughes passed away having been hit by a bouncer...that sadness stays with me, a life taken too soon, a family who's son/brother is no longer with them....

this is different; on that day, nobody was to blame, it was a tragic accident and one that changed cricket forever, not just in Australia...the outpouring of grief from cricket lovers around the globe was like nothing i'd ever seen before and I too found myself in a real funk for many months...

but this is entirely different; this situation has resulted from at least one person making a very poor decision

part of me wants to wake up from the nightmare; but i now know that won't happen...it's going to get worse before it gets better

it's possible a captain i have really liked will lose his job

it's possible one of Australia's best players will now only be remembered for this...a lapse of judgement

i admire James Sutherland's media release about the need to get the facts and conduct a process...i am all about natural justice and getting to the bottom of what's going on...

maybe it's super important to me because at times in my career, i have not felt like i was afforded natural justice...so i feel very strongly about it

then we have to balance that with the fact that Steve Smith truly has the best and most prized job in Australia; and in doing what he's done (if he was really involved like he says he was) he's potentially cut short an incredible career and in doing so, brought our national team and country into disrepute....

i'm sad....i remember when Lance Armstrong eventually confessed to taking drugs and was stripped of his Tour de France wins, I was glad my grandfather was not alive to see that...and whilst he was not an Aussie cricket fan, he was a fan, he was a fan of cricket in times gone by when it was a gentleman's game...

to be honest, it hasn't really seemed like a gentleman's game for some time...and what's unfolded overnight has just further cemented that...

sometimes, the good old days really are the good old days....

sad and angry cricket fan :-(