Is Cheating a 'mistake' ?- and other honour-shame insights from last week's Aussie cricket scandal!

I love the game of cricket - or rather I love watching the game of cricket! 

My playing days were limited to a very few enforced ones in primary school, but my watching days have been life-long.

It's been one of those sad things that here in Botswana without cable TV at home we don't get to watch the cricket, but I enjoy watching it if its on when we are in a local coffee-shop or restaurant that has a TV with it playing, and I keep abreast of it via Aussie news emails etc.

And when any South African's discover we are Aussies, there is a friendly sense of rivaly, not least over the cricket!

So it was with interest that I learnt that in the midst of the Aussie team's current tour of South Africa, they were busted for cheating! …in what is being called the 'ball tampering scandal'. A young bowler roughed up the ball with a bit of sandpaper apparently - very covertly while out in the middle of the field, and it was picked up by the cameras!

Rightly so, the Captain (who by the reports I read, was apparently complicit), and the Vice Captain (who was apparently the instigator) and bowler have been 'dealt with' by the Aussie cricket authorities and have been banned from playing for a while and issued some other punishments as well.

But the interesting thing is how the matter is being spoken about.

It has been labelled clearly and unequivocably as cheating.  No-one is debating that at all.

However, it is also being repetatively referred to as 'a mistake'.  

I have just finished reading some news articles on the Aussie ABC news site that not only feature journalistic commentary on the situation but also features various feedback from the public.

There is much to observe here in relation to honour-shame dynamics and guilt-innocence dynamics and the muddy waters the Western world is endeavouring to traverse as cultural dynamics tilt further toward the honour-shame side of things.  

Here are some news items quotes alongside some of my own reflections as I read:

1stly

In the first article:  From the Captain

"I made a serious error of judgement and I now understand the consequences. It was a failure of leadership, on my leadership. I'll do everything I can to make up for my mistake and the damage it's caused.

He expressed how sad he was at the hurt he had caused his family and how he had let down children who looked up to him as a cricketer. But alongside his Vice-Captain and many comments from members of the community, and even the coach are calling it a 'mistake'.

What was the mistake?  It was no 'mistake' that the cheating occurred. It was planned and done under instruction and direction of the Vice-captain  and knowledge of the Captain.  This was no accidental error of judgement based on ignorance - as is the definition of a mistake.

The 'mistake' - as we see so often in African honour-shame contexts too - is that there was an error in judgement as to whether or not they could get away with it….ie if they would get caught.  The mistake or error in judgement was not being aware that it would be caught on camera, that it would be exposed, and that they would then be tempted and succomb to lying about it and then receive a punishment probably greater than they expected…and that the whole matter had far more vast and painful consequences than they had contemplated.  Yes there is great sorrow for the 'mistake' - they wished they didn't have the ramifications that eventuated.

But again there doesn't seem to be too much of: 'It was wrong to cheat, we should never have even contemplated tampering with the ball, it was breaking the rules and not playing fair or being honest with our teammates, our fellow Aussies, our fans, or the South African team or South Africans'. 

Making a mistake falls into the category of 'well we are all not perfect and sometimes accidentally and unintentionally don't measure up to expected standards'…and while that is true, only focusing on that avoids the full reality that this wasn't a 'slip up', it was a well considered choice to cross a boundary and break the rules. 

When we break a 'law' we need forgiveness, when we fail to meet up to a standard and are found unacceptable, we need reconciliation from a state of rejection. We need both. We may not like to own up to a deliberate wrong choice and it might make it more palatable to call it a 'mistake', but it doesn't help in the restoration process to avoid either the guilt or the shame reality of sin.

2ndly

Interestingly the bowler, addressed both in his statement:

The bowler Bancroft said

"I lied about the sandpaper, I panicked in that situation and I'm very sorry," he said…..

I will look to improve on and earn the respect back of the community. "[For now] all I can do in the short term is ask for forgiveness,

The bowler seems to be the most balanced of guilt and shame orientation,  - he notes the exact action (lying), states he is sorry and asks for forgiveness. Alongside that he also acknowledges that he needs to win back respect. 

3rdly

Even more interesting are the reasons given in another article for the punishments handed down by Cricket Australia:

But CA didn't charge its players for tampering. It charged them under Section 2.3.5 of its own Code of Conduct, covering "unbecoming" behaviour "contrary to the spirit of the game", that could harm cricket or bring it into disrepute.

While there was no full description of what happened during the Cape Town Test, the charge sheet was specific enough to work it out. It showed that hexing the ball wasn't the worst offence, rather the cover-up afterwards.

The breaking of the rules - ie the cheating - wasn't what got the culprits the greatest punishment - it was the fact that they tried to cover it up through lies. And yes, that ought to be treated more seriously, but again, there is a subtle differentiation here, as the lies themselves are not stated as the ultimate 'wrong' and need for the punishment, but the disrepute (ie shame) brought on the game of cricket by what was done.

Here we see the 'wrong' is not understood to be the cheating or just the lies, but the fact that shame was brought on the game!

4thly

This is seen further in the Vice-Captain's comments

"Mistakes have been made which have damaged cricket," he said in a short statement he tweeted this afternoon.

"I apologise for my part and take responsibility for it.

"I understand the distress this has caused the sport and its fans."

Here we clearly see through the last statement that 'wrong' in a mis-placed honour-shame context is bringing shame and damaging relationships and causing pain to other human beings. These are not outside of sin's effect but they put sin on a horizontal plane only. 

Though Australia as a society has all but rejected God, it cannot escape the reality that there is something in life that isn't 'right' and it damages relationships and shames what should be honourable. But sin is not just a horizontal man-to-man problem.  It is only that kind of a problem because it is first a man to God problem.  Our sin is objectively against the unchanging holy standards of God and the laws of right and wrong that He sets.  

When we lose sight of 'living in the sight of God', there is a 'loss of any internal compass that should guide decision making' and begin to entertain the ideas of getting away with what other people might not see or might not deem as too serious this time.

5thly

Comments from the wider public yielded some interesting perspectives.  One said that it was all a great 'embarassment' and they should have been 'aware they were being watched on the security cameras'. 

Here we have the core of the problem.  When we don't live before the eyes of God we will take risks hoping no human eyes see us.  When we don't 'see' with our own eyes, who the eyes are that are watching us, we tend to think they are not watching at all. 'Out of sight out of mind' can take on a fresh meaning!

If this is a wake-up call to the fact that our modern world has cameras and eyes everywhere, it is a reminder to us all that we are being watched by Almighty God for all eternity. And just as those cricketers let the present moment blind them from the reality of 'camera eyes' everywhere and the future consequences of their choices, so we are tempted every day to forget that God's eyes see everything and there will be future eternal consequences of all our actions here on earth.

6thly

The shame of sin affects and infects more than the individual sinner. The problem with this act - and the main reason given for punishment - is that it brought disrepute to the game of cricket. It didn't just bring dishonour to the three men involved but to their whole team and to the game itself and to the nation of Australia as a whole. Even the Australian Prime Minister is saying the incident is harming Australia's international reputation in more than cricket. I am 'shamed' in the eyes of South African's (and the world) even though I am not guilty of the actual act of ball tampering. We 'guilt-oriented' Westerners can have trouble coming to terms with Adam's sin impacting the whole of humanity. This cricket incident helps us understand the realities and consequences of sin.

7thly

Sin doesn't only make us guilty, but it is also shameful, and from the media reports I understand that the bowler's punishment was more for the actual tampering and the team leadership punishment was greater, not only because they were the leaders, but because they were responsible for the greater level of the game being brought into disrepute.  

This is reflective of the reality that the act has greater consequences than just the act. The 'transgression' of the law is also a shaming of the law-giver (in this case Cricket Australia and other international Cricket bodies).  This is a very good picture of the realities of our sin against God. The transgression of God's law is also a shaming and dishonouring of Him as law-giver. Our sin is wrong because it dishonours God and it dishonours God because it is wrong!  

If we think of it like an umbrella, shame is like the umbrella canopy and guilt is like the handle - both are together and part of the one apparatus but the guilt is 'within' the overall reality of the shamefulness of sin.

This Easter...

Maybe you could use some of the realities of this cricket story with your friends and neighbours about the eternal realities and shocks and pain that will come upon us when what God sees is revealed…and nothing will be hidden that was done in secret…unless we have been willing to admit to God our Creator that not only are we in great shame before him and need to be reconciled but we have also disobeyed his rules and need his forgiveness. We have made deliberate choices to flout God's laws and we are making the biggest mistake of our lives when out of ignorance of God and His all-powerful ultimate authority we fail to realise that we won't 'get away with' sin - He will expose it and it will be more painful that we could imagine.

We are all under the shame of Adam's sin, and we are all under the shame of our own sin. As we look at the shame of the cricketer's actions, it causes us to not just look at them, but look at ourselves. The issue has brought to the fore the whole issue of shame as it relates to sin. Even the national ABC news website saw fit to put up an article (by Natasha Moore, of the Centre for Public Christianity), full of biblical truth on public shaming, the Easter message about Jesus, and our sin - please take the time to read the full article here.

At this Easter time, Jesus is the good news of rescue from that ultimate pain of shame and punishment, that won't be for just 12 months like the cricketers got, but will be for all eternity. Let's use this event that has had worldwide exposure as a means of turning people's hearts and minds to the truth of the gospel message of Easter.