One of Australian sport’s darkest days

The Australian Test side is our oldest, best known and most widely followed national team. Whether you watch every ball bowled over the summer, or you're only vaguely aware of whether we win or lose, you know that our sporting pride is steeped in the history of Ashes Test victories and fiery clashes on the subcontinent. When as tourists we travel to countries such as India and Sri Lanka, cricket fans know the names of Australian Test batsmen as readily as their own stars.

The Australian way centres on a "fair go" – we play hard, but we earn our wins fairly. Indeed, Australian sport generally has always claimed the high moral ground when it comes to cheating. Decades of cricketers may have stretched the limits of public patience with all manner of lewd, unprofessional and simply unacceptable behaviour on and off the field, but breaking the rules has been off limits. Until now. Even the infamous "underarm incident" of 1981 – when Greg Chappell ordered a desperate final ball ploy to prevent a match-tieing six by New Zealand – was within the game's laws at the time, although it was resoundingly condemned for not being in the game's spirit.

The current Test series in South Africa has already had its share of controversy, but on Sunday morning Australians woke to the stunning revelation that captain Steve Smith had admitted he – and what he described as "the leadership group" – had hatched a plan to cheat by tampering with the ball on day three. The plan was then carried out using eight-match rookie Cameron Bancroft. The decision to tamper with the ball was bad enough. But by selecting the newest member of the team to carry out their dirty work, Smith and the unnamed group demonstrated a moral failure that fails every possible leadership test. How they thought they would get away with it is galling in its sheer stupidity. There were dozens of cameras watching the players' every move, commentators analysing the angles ball by ball. The piece of yellow tape could be clearly seen as Bancroft took it from his pocket to rough up the ball.

If social media can be taken as representative of the reaction around the country, it's clear the incident has sparked universal condemnation. Shame, embarrassment and anger are being vented. And it's not hard to understand why. One cricket fan summed up the mood of many when he posted a picture of his son, aged no more than eight, in full cricket kit and facing the camera as if he were the opening batsman, with the words: "My son idolises Steve Smith. What am I meant to tell him today?"

It is this sentiment that is perhaps the hardest to take. Our male cricket stars like Smith are paid millions of dollars a year in match fees and sponsorship deals to play a game, and in doing so are held up as idols for future generations of athletes. The behaviour in this Test match has let the nation down.