Opinion: 'Mental disintegration' Steve Waugh style comes back to haunt Australia

Australians are known for their "aggressive" and "brutal" style of playing cricket, however, for the first time in the proud history of baggy greenAustralian cricketers are saying - "I am deeply sorry."

A very surprising situation, when International Cricket Council(ICC) gave them a bit of leeway while punishing them for altering the condition of the ball in order to win the match, Cricket Australia went ahead and slapped the men in question - Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft- with stringent bans.

A 12-months ban for ball-tampering appears very harsh to some fans, let's take a look back when the "bully" Australians have tarnished the "gentleman's game". There is enough proof to nail the Aussies.

Not too long ago former Australian batsman Mark Waugh and legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne were involved in a betting scandal when they admitted to taking money to pass on pitch report to a bookie during Australia's tour of Sri Lanka in 1994. Both players were fined but to some extent, the incident was covered-up.

Steve Waugh, the architect of mental disintegration,now "deeply troubled" and has written a letter in the wake of the recent ball-tampering scandal to address the "heartbroken cricket followers worldwide" but his practice of making teasing remarks to an opposing player in order to disturb their concentration still haunts the cricketing world.

Darren Lehmann, who stepped down as the Australian coach with watery eyes was once found guilty of racism.

In 2003, during Australia's tour to Sri Lanka, Lehmann shouted "Cunts, cunts, fucking black cunts," while marching towards the dressing room after he had been run out. But the same Aussies looked for sympathy when the Monkeygate scandal broke out between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds in 2008.

The cricket fraternity, especially, Australians cried over Phil Hughes death, who died when a bouncer struck his neck during a domestic match in Sydney but the same Aussies greeted Virat Kohli with bouncers.

Australian antics does not end here, remember the Test match between Australia and India when Michael Slater forced umpire Venkatraghavan to falsely claim Dravid's catch in 2001.

And who can forget when Darryl Harper, an Australian umpire gave Sachin Tendulkar LBW on a ball which was above shoulder height - a bouncer.

David Warner who has now apologised for his involvement in the recent ball-tampering scandal, once punched an English player Joe Root in a pub in the United Kingdom in 2013 and defended himself by saying that the incident happened in aggression. Really?

"I understand the consequences now," said Steve Smith in the recent emotional media interaction but was he aware of the consequences when he looked towards the pavilion to get approval before reviewing a decision during their India's tour in 2017, later calling it a "brain fade" moment.

Australian cricket is littered with sledging incidents or "mental disintegration" in Aussie terms as players from South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, England and Pakistan would testify.

Watch the video of Rahul Dravid andMichael Slater incident:

See how Australians mentally disintegrate opponents:

Were they ever sorry? When they tried to "hijack" the mind by sledging and passing personal and derogatory comments on the opposition's wives and girl-friends? Which eventually is a far worse concept in cricket than ball-tampering for which the tarnished players are crying.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the authors and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)