Dylan Cleaver on cricket's ball-tampering scandal: Having the (tampered) balls to take on Australia

The issue here is not ball-tampering. Honestly, it's not.

Ball-tampering is just the latest white-head on the acne-scarred face of this Australian cricket team. The difference is the pimple has been lanced and those that have become increasingly tired of this team's behaviour are going to use the chance to try to drain as much of the pus as possible.

It's an opportunistic squeeze play, though long overdue.

As for the reaction to the ball-tampering, well, it's been completely over the top. Sure, it's cheating but arguments that it's a particularly bad type of cheating are quickly enveloped in fuzzy logic.

It was premeditated. It was against the rules. It highlighted an ethical vacuum in Australia's leadership group, with captain Steven Smith front and centre. It put the most inexperienced player in the team, Cameron Bancroft, in a career-damaging position.

All these things are true. But what is Faf du Plessis using lollies and the sugary saliva that produces to change the ball if it is not premeditated cheating? What is Mike Atherton using dirt in his pocket to change the ball, if it's not premeditated cheating? What was New Zealand in Pakistan in 1990 using bottletops to scour the ball – a technique they practiced between tests – if it wasn't utterly blatant, premeditated cheating?

If altering the condition of the ball is an atrocity, then surely all those returns to the keeper on the first-bounce, when modern cricketers have the sort of arms that can throw from one side of the ground to the other, are sins against sport.

All of this has happened, yet nothing has ever blown up like this.

Bancroft furtively trying to hide the adhesive tape down his pants didn't help. Smith's clumsy admission of the leadership team meeting that planned it made it all the more nefarious (though in other circumstances he might have been praised for his belated honesty), but this is a strike against the Australian team and its win-at-every-cost culture, not a strike against the sanctity of the playing conditions.

This is a strike against Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood and their sneering, ugly sledging.

It is a strike against David Warner and his obnoxious brand of noise pollution.

It is a strike against that tacky, four-fingered post-Ashes victory presentation.

It is, as much as anything, a strike against that nebulous line in the sand that Australia have taken upon themselves to administer. It is a line Nathan Lyon admitted they sought to "headbutt", yet never cross.

It was a strike against Darren Lehmann, their tone deaf coach who has a famously black-and-white view of the world, who had the gall to criticise South African crowds for going over the top, having clearly never spent a day on the bank at the WACA.

So many people, even in Australia, have been waiting for an opportunity to express just how much they loathe the dark heart of this sensationally skilled team.

A guileless attempt at roughing up one side of the ball is just a convenient tool.

Don't cry for Smith and co, though.

They've earned the disgrace.

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