The Australian press crushed the nation’s cricket team on Monday after captain Steve Smith admitted that the side’s “leadership group” had devised a method of systematic cheating during the third Test against South Africa by tampering with the ball.

The local press said that the cricketers had heaped disgrace and humiliation on the country, blasting the “rotten” team culture under the current leadership.

Everyone from former Test greats, to the Australian Sports Commission, and the public condemned what happened, with the story dominating front pages.

Peter Lalor, cricket correspondent for The Australian and Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, said the conspiracy clearly showed “there is something rotten at the heart of the Australian cricket team”.

“The public has struggled to love a side that wins ugly, but success and nationalism and tradition have patched the frayed fabric,” he wrote Monday. “A conspiracy to cheat, however, has ripped the cloth and major repairs will be needed.”

This was The Daily Telegraph’s front page on Monday, where the headline and photo implied that the guilty Australian cricketers had shamed the team’s sacred baggy green cap, which has been worn by barely 450 people till date:

The Australian was also one of the many newspapers that used the word “shame” in its front-page headline. “The cheating has hurt Australian cricket from helmet to boot,” the newspaper said in a commentary, calling for Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland to stand down.

“In charge of the game for nearly two decades, Sutherland has done little to change the rotten culture of the sport at its most senior level.” It added that the scandal had dumped “disgrace and humiliation” on the nation.

In the same theme, the newspaper’s cricket writer Peter Lalor asked: “Where were the adults in the room? The answer to the question is, sadly, that these are the adults. Or the nearest thing to them that the game can summon.”

The Sydney Morning Herald was equally scathing, saying Australia’s cricket leadership had “lost the plot” and there will be a heavy price to pay.

“As this disreputable tour descended from the gutter into the sewer, the mythical line the Australians use as the yardstick for their behaviour has not only become blurred but disappeared altogether,” it said.

“This has been a truly awful few weeks for Australian cricket whose reputation has hit a new low. Rehabilitation will be long and slow,” it added.

The Age, whose headline also had the word “shame” in it, said that Steve Smith and Australian cricket’s fall from grace “will take time to sink in”.

Three days ago, this 28-year-old was set to hold his high office for as long as Allan Border,” wrote the newspaper’s cricket writer Malcolm Knox. “Three days ago, he was the best batsman since Bradman. Three days ago, he was still a kid, a suburban Sydney cricket nut with an endearing bag of tics and twitches.

“Today, if you polled Australian cricket followers, Smith would be welcome to spend the rest of his career as a pariah on the Twenty20 mercenary circuit and forget about wearing that baggy green cap.”

The Herald Sun called for everyone involved in the ball tampering to be sacked.

Russell Gould, who writes for the Herald Sun and The Advertiser, had this to say: “When your first option, if things aren’t going your way, is to cheat, then you don’t have the right stuff to lead a team. Forget that the whole leadership group was in on it. The buck stops with the captain, what he says goes. The minute he said ‘go’ for cheating, was the minute he signed off as a real captain.”

The tabloids, of course, had a field day.

With inputs from AFP