The official records will show that Australia lost the Cape Town Test by 322 runs on Sunday. But in reality, they had lost the match well before that. They lost the match when they decided to cheat. They lost the fans the moment they thought it was okay to do so. The lost themselves when they lost sight of the light.

When Australia took the field on Sunday, it seemed like someone had sucked their souls out. The crowd booed them. Their heads weren’t held up high. The bowlers still ran in hard but their hearts were simply not in it. They wouldn’t have been able to look themselves in the eye because the irony of the situation should have been clear to most of their players.

Just a year ago, South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis was caught on camera sucking on a sweet during the second Test in Hobart, before using his saliva to shine the ball. Despite no accusations from Australia, the ICC found Du Plessis guilty and fined him 100 percent of his match fee. He avoided a ban and responded with a hundred in the following match. In the press conference immediately after the game, David Warner had a few moral lessons to hand out; lessons that now seem empty; lessons that now seem like little more than thinly disguised white lies.

Sense of disbelief

In the commentary box, the talk was all about Australia’s admission of guilt.

Former West Indies fast bowler Michael Holding, in particular, just didn’t get why the quantum of punishment the ICC was likely to mete out was so mild.

“You can’t give them (just) a three match ban for cheating. I did not understand that press conference. There was a lot of talk about embarrassment, and getting caught but not a lot of apologising going on. A lot of ‘I didn’t try to’ or that I wasn’t ‘trying’. You didn’t try, you did. Anyway, this is getting my head hot.”

Holding further added: “Ball tampering didn’t work as the umpire didn’t change the ball. Doesn’t matter. It was the act. It was the thought. So what’s the big deal is like shooting a gun at you and missing and saying you’re still alive… so what’s the big deal.”

And when the ICC finally issued a statement, Holding’s worst fears had come true.

The Australia captain Steve Smith has been handed a one-match suspension and fined 100% of his match fee following his admission that he was party to a decision to attempt to change the condition of the ball in order to gain an unfair advantage.

ICC Chief Executive David Richardson laid the charge against Smith under Article 2.2.1 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which prohibits ‘all types of conduct of a serious nature that is contrary to the spirit of the game’.

Smith accepted the charge and the proposed sanction of two suspension points which equates to a ban for the next Test match and which will see four demerit points added to his record.

Richardson said: “The decision made by senior players of the Australian team to act in this way is clearly contrary to the spirit of the game, risks causing significant damage to the integrity of the match, the players and the sport itself and is therefore ‘serious’ in nature.”

Cameron Bancroft received a 75% fine and three demerit points. Australia vice-captain David Warner was also removed from his position on the fourth day in Cape Town.

Sanction lacking in context

The punishment seems far too little and too mild. A one-Test ban for Smith, who is likely to play 100-plus Tests amounts to virtually nothing and fining them just their match fees makes a mockery of the betrayal that fans all over the world are feeling. The others will move on too.

But where does that leave the sport or Australian cricket?

The big problem here is that the ICC is going solely by the rulebook. But how do the rules deal with a captain (or the leadership group) who willingly threw a youngster under the bus? How do they deal with the leadership group that was privy to the decision? They knew it was wrong and they willingly did it. This went way beyond a regular brain fade or sledging or aggression.

Smith is likely to say that everyone does it but that still doesn’t make it a good decision. And even if everyone does do it, why should the fans feel sympathetic for a cheater? Why shouldn’t we instead talk of individual responsibility and peer pressure?

A captain needs to have moral authority but this incident will ensure that Smith has lost his forever. He should never again become Australia skipper. Ironically, he still believes he is the right man to lead Australia.

He does, the rest of Australia doesn’t.

ASC chairman John Wylie said the behaviour of Smith and Bancroft was such that they, “should have been on the first plane home yesterday”.

“If an athlete had been representing Australia in an Olympic Games and they had brought the country and the team into disrepute, that’s what would have happened to them,” Wylie told the ABC.

“We think it’s right and appropriate that Cricket Australia does take decisive action, further action beyond what the International Cricket Council has done to ensure that Australians are proud of their cricket team.”

The sanctions need to deter others and what the ICC has in place, clearly doesn’t. They keep trying to do it over and over again. But these are extraordinary circumstances and it needs to be dealt with in a befitting manner.

The ICC sanctions are laughable – the fines are small and missing a Test when so much other cricket is being played doesn’t hurt. That Cricket Australia needs to take decisive action beyond what the governing body has already taken shows that too little has been done; too little to soothe the hurt; too little to restore the faith.