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TD Paine who will lead Australia against South Africa at Johannesburg, the final test which starts today will become the 31^st wicket keeper to lead a team in tests in the annals of test cricket. The career figures of the thirty captain wicket keepers are tabulated below.  The list does not contain the players who have deputized as captain in the middle of the test or remainder of the test.

TD Paine will also become the fifth Australian wicket keeper batsman to lead Australia in tests. Others are – WL Mudroch, JM  Blackham, BN Jarman  and AC Gichrist.

In an emotional media briefing, Lehmann says his decision is voluntary.

Australia coach Darren Lehmann said on Thursday he would step down after this week’s Test match against South Africa, partly because of abuse his family received over the ball-tampering scandal that has rocked the sport.
In an emotional media briefing, Mr. Lehmann said his decision was voluntary.
“This will be my last Test as head coach of the Australian cricket team,” he said. “Saying goodbye to the players was the toughest thing I have ever had to do.”
Mr. Lehmann, who was not was due to leave the job until after the 2019 Ashes series in England, is quitting despite being cleared of any role in the ball-tampering scandal.

Article Courtesy – The  Hindu of 30.03.18

Former Australian cricket captain Steve Smith breaks down as he speaks to the media in Sydney after being sent home from South Africa following a ball tampering scandal.

Distraught former Australian cricket captain Steve Smith accepted full responsibility on Thursday for the ball-tampering scandal that has shaken the sport, breaking down in tears while denying it had ever happened before.
Cricket Australia have banned Smith and David Warner from all international and domestic cricket for a year, while opening batsman Cameron Bancroft was exiled for nine months over attempted cheating during the third Test in South Africa.
Smith, a golden boy compared to Donald Bradman for his batting exploits, was a broken man at an emotional press conference on his arrival back in Sydney from Johannesburg.
“I take full responsibility, I made a serious error of judgment and I understand the consequences. It was a failure of leadership,” he said, choking back tears.
“It was a failure of leadership, of my leadership, I’ll do anything I can to make up for my mistake and the damage it has caused,” he added, breaking down for the first time. If any good can come of this, as an example to others, I can be a force for change. I know I’ll regret this for the rest of my life, I’m absolutely gutted,” he said
“I hope in time I can earn back respect and forgiveness. I’ve been so privileged and honoured to represent my country, and captain the Australian cricket team. Cricket is the greatest game in the world. It’s been my life and I hope it can be again. I’m sorry and I’m absolutely devastated.”
Smith said, to his knowledge, it was the first time it had happened and he was not about to offload the blame onto Warner.
“I don’t blame anyone,” he said. “I’m the captain of the Australian cricket team, it happened on my watch and I take responsibility for what happened in Cape Town last Saturday.”
Impact on parents
The final question he was able to field before he broke down for the last time and was ushered out of the room with his father Peter was about what he would tell cricket-loving children.
“Anytime you are thinking of making a questionable decision, think about who you are affecting, you’re affecting your parents,” he said.
“To see the way my old man’s been,” he sobbed.
“(To see) My mum it hurts. I can’t remember what I was saying. I just want to say sorry for the pain I have caused to the Australian public. I am truly sorry,” he concluded fighting back sobs.
Smith was jeered as he made his way through Johannesburg airport on Wednesday surrounded by police and media with concerns over his mental state in the current rabid climate and coach Darren Lehmann calling for all three men to be “given a second chance”.
Former great Shane Warne offered the trio an olive branch despite days of a harsh and judgmental Australian public baying for blood.“What the public wants to see is change. They want to see you be a better person,” he wrote in a column for the Sydney Daily Telegraph. “They’ll support you if they see that, and they’ll forgive you.

Article Courtesy – The Hindu of 30.03.18

Cameron Bancroft and SPD Smith at the Press Conference

Only Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were involved in ball-tampering during Australia’s third test match against South Africa, according to James Sutherland, CA Chief Executive.
The embattled trio of Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft will be sent home in disgrace on Wednesday as Cricket Australia came down heavily on their errant captain, his deputy and young opener for orchestrating a ball-tampering conspiracy against South Africa, sullying the image of a cricket-loving nation.
However, chief coach Darren Lehmann has been given a clean chit for the time being, as Cricket Australia concluded its preliminary investigations on Tuesday.
Tim Paine will captain Australia in the final Test match with reinforcements in middle-order batsman Glenn Maxwell along with openers Joe Burns and Matt Renshaw scheduled to arrive on Wednesday.
“All three players (Smith, Warner, Bancroft) that have been reported will leave tomorrow [Wednesday]. Renshaw, Maxwell and Burns will arrive in South Africa in the next 24 hours,” CA chief executive James Sutherland told a packed media conference here this evening.
“Time Paine has been officially appointed the captain of the Test team,” he added.
Sutherland informed that apart from the trio, no other player in the group had any prior knowledge about the wrongdoing. “Contrary to inaccurate reports, Darren has not resigned. He had no prior knowledge,” confirmed Sutherland.
Questioned whether Lehmann offered to resign, Sutherland replied: “As far as I am aware no he has not, at least not to me.”
“No other players or support staff had prior knowledge and this includes coach Darren Lehmann who had no prior knowledge. He will continue to coach the national team under his current contract,” said the former first-class player.
He made it clear that tough sanctions awaited the trio after the full inquiry is complete.
“We are contemplating significant sanctions in each case of the three players. These sanctions will reflect the gravity of what occurred and the damage it has done Australian cricket. Urgency must be balanced with due process. We have conducted an investigation, we have made reports and sanctions will be issued tomorrow. They will be significant. They will reflect the gravity of the situation,” he added.
Sutherland said that he was angry but maintained that it was “an isolated incident of significant concern.”
“I share the disappointment of the fans. We have had a board meeting today, Cricket Australia share these same feelings. I want to apologise to all Australians that this happened, particularly to all the kids that love cricket and idolise the players.”
He said that he is aware of the impact of the damage done by the trio and corrective measures will be taken. “I would not underestimate the damage this does to the game. What we are about as an organisation is cricket. If this has damaged the ability of cricket then it’s a sorry state. We must do everything we can to repair it.”

ICC has handed out punishment as provided by the rules, Cricket Australia may punish them severely but calls for a life ban are beyond the pale
The Australian cricket team’s leadership group found itself in trouble in South Africa after team captain Steve Smith admitted that the group had conspired to tamper with the ball to gain an unfair advantage in the match. This was after Cameron Bancroft had been caught tampering with the ball on camera. ICC has punished Smith and Bancroft as per rules and Cricket Australia has also come under pressure with Australian PM Turnbull calling the incident a shocking disappointment. Opinions have been divided on the suitable punishment for Steve Smith and others. Some have even called for a life ban. In this Business Standard Special, the author takes a look at the controversy and measures up these calls for punishment against logic and fairness.
Steven Smith, Australia’s Cricket captain who presided over the most demonstrably pre-meditated act of cheating on a Cricket field will not play in his team’s next Test match. He will likely be stood down from his leadership position longer than that. He would be ill-advised to try and see out a contract at the Rajasthan Royals and he should go stand in a corner, facing the wall, for the foreseeable short-term future.
Suitable punishments for Smith have been discussed with life ban having been suggested too. The outrage, especially in social media circles, has reached such a fever pitch that those baying for blood will continue to bleed till they have been heard.
The most absurd suggestion has compared the actions of Cameron Bancroft, Smith and David Warner, and anyone else in the leadership group, to match-fixing. If anything, this is the opposite of that, the worst thing a cricketer can possibly do. Match-fixers undermine the credibility of a game, underperform for a fee, while this Australian team, was doing the opposite.
Make no mistake, Bancroft and friends were trying to gain an unfair advantage over South Africa, to try and win. You can only fix a match, or a performance, to underperform.
Here is a team trying to take an unfair advantage over the opposition. This is more akin to a sportsperson doping than one trying to make a big buck by selling his game out. There is no excusing Bancroft and friends, but comparisons to match-fixing, and suggestions of lifetime bans are ridiculous.
Acting as swiftly as it possibly can, the International Cricket Council brought charges, heard the case and delivered their verdict: Smith was gone for a game, Bancroft fined heavily and put on notice.
The ICC acted precisely as their Code of Conduct allowed and handed out punishments in proportion to the breaches committed.
But, this was never about ball tampering alone. As has been made clear, there is almost no team that does not try to gain the greatest advantage over the condition of a ball, but the manner in which this Australian team blatantly flouted the laws, challenged the umpires when caught and then tried to jettison the evidence, left the rest of the Cricket world with little choice.
As for the charges brought, the ICC has done its bit and doled out justice as per its parameters. Cricket Australia is yet to move, but there is every indication that they will go above and beyond what the ICC have sanctioned.
Chances are that Smith’s demotion will not be a temporary thing, and David Warner will finally get what was always coming to him, but the game must go on and Australia cannot allow themselves to be defined by a group of people who made bad choices in tough times. Suggestion to ban Smith for life, however, may be beyond the pale.
Smith is the most watchable batsman in the world today, potentially Australia’s best since Don Bradman, and he does not deserve to be remembered as the man who sunk Australian cricket. Warner, on the other hand, is not in the same mould and some may not consider him worthy of a position in any “leadership-group” but there is no denying that he can still enrich the game with his contribution as a foot-soldier.
If Australia lost Smith and Warner, and a few more to boot, would the team still be Australia when it played cricket again?
Is this the Australian team that the rest of the cricket world wants to beat, scarred as they are by Aussie dominance over decades? The truth is that every team in the world is waiting for a chance to peg Australia back. Every batsman is sick of the constant sledging they face when Australia is on the field. Every bowler is bored of the suggestion that he got lucky picking up three wickets. Every umpire is staggered by the suggestion that Australia’s cricketers only recognise them when they give decisions against the opponents. And every journalist who has covered Australian cricket can sense that this is a new and perhaps desperate low.
The Australian Prime Minister has weighed in, former captains have fired salvoes and future coaching prospects have kept the fight clean, but there is a fight nevertheless.
At the end of the day, however, there are two separate issues that have to be dealt with. The first is the ICC sanction — Smith suspended, Bancroft fined — and the second is what Cricket Australia will do to regain the faith of their public. The ICC is good at going by the book, even if these specific chapters are deeply flawed.
For the moment, with all evidence in hand, there is no reason to believe that Smith should be banned for an extended period, or that Warner should be disallowed from captaining Sunrisers Hyderabad or playing for them.
Each has paid the price in the place that hurts them most. They deserve this, and the harshest punishment the laws on hand can provide. But, asking for anything more, is vengeance, something that should have no place in cricket.

Anand Vasu is a freelance journalist who has followed Indian cricket for two decades. He tweets as @anandvasu

Test cricket was front page news across the world over the past two days, for all the wrong reasons “It’s tampering, it happens. Move on. Calls for Smith to be sacked – how many captains would’ve been sacked over the years if everyone did that?”
A cricket-writing colleague, not from Australia, asked me that question on Sunday. It was a valid query. Ball-tampering does happen in cricket, probably a lot more than anyone outside the game realises. Players have been sanctioned for it before. In the ICC’s Code of Conduct it is ranked at the same level as making a seriously obscene gesture and is less grave than intimidating an umpire. The maximum penalty is a fine and suspension for one Test, which Steven Smith received and Cameron Bancroft did not.
So, why is that not the end of the story? Why was there such widespread national outrage over an incident that cricket’s governing body views as only of moderate severity?
To answer a question with another question, what do they know of Australia who only Australian cricket know?
To understand the public response, and why the incident touched such a nerve, you need to understand the role sport has always played in Australia’s national identity. Indeed, since before we even had a nation with which to identify.
This is a young country – Australia’s states did not join together in federation until 1901. But Dave Gregory had taken office as Australia’s first Test captain in 1877, 24 years before Edmund Barton became our first prime minister.
Edwin Flack won Australia two Olympic gold medals before Australia existed as a nation, and Australia has prided itself on punching far above its weight in Olympic competition ever since.
“What sort of leaders not only hatch a plan like this, but have the team’s most junior member take all the risk? That is not leadership, it is cowardice.”
The first Australian to win a world championship in any sport, rower Ned Trickett, was welcomed home by a crowd of 25,000 people when he returned to Sydney after winning the World Sculling Championship in England in 1876.
More sportspeople have been named Australian of the Year than individuals from any other broad field of endeavour.
It is written into national legislation that no company can name itself after Don Bradman without government permission. The only other person with such name protection is Australia’s first Catholic saint, Mary MacKillop.
When Cadel Evans became Australia’s first Tour de France winner in 2011, he was a national hero, not least because he was clean in a sport rife with cheating.
This is the context in which the country’s response to the ball-tampering incident must be viewed. Rightly or wrongly, our sportspeople have historically stood on pedestals far greater than any other members of our society. And the primary obligation the public asks in return is simple: don’t cheat. Don’t abuse our trust.
Sometimes our sporting stars behave detestably and are rightly castigated. Our cricketers are no exception. They say they do not cross “the line”, while the rest of us wonder where the hell it is. Of course, like any line in the sand, it washes away with the tide, to be redrawn wherever it suits at the time.
The Australian public has a line, too. And with their culture of sledging, whingeing, hypocrisy and arrogance, our cricketers have been head-butting it for so long that they have become an insufferable national migraine.
So when Bancroft was seen cheating, by rubbing the ball with a shred of yellow tape and then hiding the offending item in his jocks like a naughty schoolboy, there was no sympathy. An already frustrated nation was now also losing its trust in the team, and that trust irretrievably shattered when Smith admitted that this was a premeditated act, cooked up by the team leadership group at the lunch break.
The public response in Australia was swift and overwhelming and came from the Prime Minister down. Opportunistic politicians joined the pile-on, but there was already an enormous bandwagon on which to leap. The Australian public feels ownership of the cricket team that represents their country, and Sunday was like a nationwide fire-sale. Condemnation is to be expected of a national side caught cheating, but the widespread nature of the reactions, and the lack of dissenting voices, tells a story about how this team is viewed.
A sprinkling of ex-players have said that ball-tampering is rife at all levels of the game, and that nobody can plead ignorance. That might be true of professional cricketers, and even of many club players. But this is not about them. It is about representing 25 million people and thus being held to higher standards. It is about the fans who trusted the wrong people.
There is no sight in cricket quite like reverse swing, that late tail in, the stumps cartwheeling. But like a steak-lover who turns vegetarian after a visit to the abattoir, the average Australian cricket fan would be happy never to see reverse swing again, now that they have witnessed for themselves what goes into it. The challenge for Australian cricket is to stop fans abstaining from the team entirely.
To hear the doyen of Australian cricket commentators, the ABC’s Jim Maxwell, becoming emotional on the radio while saying that he could not remember ever feeling as disappointed in an Australian team as now, told of the gravity of the situation. The players involved should be forced to listen to that audio as part of their punishment.
And nobody in the Australian squad who knew about the plan beforehand can play in the next Test in Johannesburg. It would be utterly unconscionable. What sort of leaders not only hatch a plan like this but have the team’s most junior member take all the risk? That is not leadership, it is cowardice. Even if Bancroft was not asked to tamper, but simply overheard the discussion and took it upon himself, responsibility is still on the captain. It was cricket’s equivalent of loudly asking: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
And that is why Smith’s position as captain is now untenable. Captaining Australia is not a right, it is a privilege, and a responsibility, and one that cannot be given to anyone who was part of this. As for the coach Darren Lehmann, even if he didn’t know about the plan – and that is hard to believe – he has fostered whatever sorry culture brought the dressing room to this point. He cannot realistically stay on either.
History tells us that the outcry will eventually die down, but it will take time. Smith will lose the captaincy and serve a ban, probably a short one, but he will return to the side, and will, hopefully, over time earn the nation’s forgiveness. So too the other players involved. The stain will never fully disappear, but it will fade.
Shane Warne was suspended for a year for taking a banned diuretic. Warne and Mark Waugh were the subjects of public shame for providing pitch and weather information to a bookmaker. These incidents were dubiously explained away by naivete. Greg Chappell ordered his brother Trevor to bowl underarm, which was within the laws of the game, and in later years admitted that at the back end of a stressful and demanding season, he had not been mentally fit to be captain. The incidents are remembered with distaste, but the men involved are not outcasts.
Outcasts certainly emerged from the biggest recent controversy in Australian sport, an AFL scandal involving the Essendon club and their practice of injecting their players with banned peptides. Players served bans and the coach, James Hird, previously considered of unimpeachable character, eventually lost his job and was effectively shunned by the sport. In 2017, four years after the scandal emerged, he was hospitalised for a suspected drug overdose.
That is in part a reflection of how premeditated cheating is viewed in Australia, but also the way social media and the 24-hour news cycle magnifies events. Jon Ronson’s excellent 2015 book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, examines how social media has led to a return of the days of public shaming. Twitter pile-on bring out the worst kind of mob mentality and can lead to a loss of all sense of proportion. Suggestions of life bans fall firmly in that category. There will be official sanctions, but the unofficial punishments – shame and humiliation – will hurt the most.
It is worth noting that in the lead-up to the Cape Town Test, Smith actually admitted that his mind was not in a good place. His comments were in specific relation to his batting struggles, but with hindsight, it is hard not to wonder if the words had a wider meaning: “I didn’t feel I was hitting the ball that well [during the summer] but my mind was in a good place. Maybe now my mind is not in as good a space as it was.”
It will hardly be in a better space after the past two days. While Cricket Australia has a responsibility to punish the players involved, it also has some responsibility for their welfare while doing so. These are young men who made a stupid mistake and must pay the price, but in the process, they cannot be left without support.
Still, in the here and now, this scandal is bigger than just cricket. It goes to the heart of Australian national identity. Australia’s cricket team is older than the country itself and historically, cricket has been the team sport with the greatest nationwide support in Australia. The public response reflects this affection. Short bans and a loss of leadership positions are the appropriate response. The written Laws of Cricket might tolerate Smith and Lehmann staying on as captain and coach, but the unwritten rules of Australia will not.

Article courtesy – espncrinfo.com

New Zealand won the just concluded test against England at Auckland by an innings and 49 runs to provide the 24^th occasion of New Zealand winning a test by an innings margin. All such occasions are tabulated below in the descending order of margin of victory.

It also provides the second occasion of New Zealand winning the test by an innings margin against England. The first such win was at Christchurch in Feb 1984 when it had trounced England by an innings and 132 runs. Both the occasions are tabulated below

England lost the just concluded test against New Zealand at Auckland by an innings and 49 runs to provide the 61st occasion of England losing a test by an innings margin. All such occasions are tabulated below in the descending order of margin of victory.