I certainly did but I feel a whole lot worse after Cricket Australia released the findings of their investigation and handed down their sentences. This is a dagger into the hearts of all Australian cricket supporters!

I’m a massive fan of the Australian cricket team and love the game of cricket itself. I grew up with two brothers and a whole host of mates in the small village of Stuart Town playing endless games anywhere we could, the main street, down the local dam at Mookerawa where fielding at deep midwicket floating on an air mattress was the desired spot.

At home it was the backyard until we were banned after one of my brothers (or leadership group as Steve Smith would put it) cover drove a shiny red Kookaburra through the laundry window into dad’s head! Henceforth we were ordered by the authorities (Dad) to only play in the front yard bowling with a tennis ball using sticky tape (potentially yellow) to produce a seam so thick if it landed on the edge it would bend better than Warney’s ball of the century.

For those new to the gentleman’s game ball tampering has been around since before WG Grace refused to walk on being given out.

Every summer we’d play timeless tests from sun up to sun down or if a match was on TV, during the lunch and tea breaks, imitating our favourite batsmen and bowlers, from the wonderful, my favourite Sir Richard Hadlee, to the weird, Kepler Wessels. Anyone want a hard task, try hit a ball to fine leg with that stance? Let me tell you, it’s quite difficult especially when you’re a natural right hander.

Those were the glorious days before cricket turned professional, before television trained 30 high definition cameras on the field - heck we only had one end to watch from when I was a young fella. Some of those LBW’s you just had to trust the umpire got it right. Accepting the umpire’s decision was the mantra and another part of the game that’s gone pear shaped, players these days won’t even accept another player’s word on a catch.

Respect has gone out of cricket and sport in general.

Cricket has always had issues. Incidents blew up from time to time between countries, Bodyline of course, underarm, who can forget that, certainly not me. I watched the drama unfold at one of my mate’s, who just happened to be New Zealander’s!

If you ever want to know what irate Kiwi’s sound like tweet me. Dennis Lillee trying to boot Javed Miandad back to Pakistan makes Kagiso Rabada’s nudge on Steve Smith look like a tiff between choir boys. World Series Cricket nearly tore the game to pieces but cricket always survived and came out the winner in the end even if Australia hadn’t always covered itself in glory, it seemed to be a time when losing wasn’t considered a national tragedy. You took it on the chin, shook your opponent’s hand then had a beer with them.

These days it’s straight into an ice bath while kids with sports science degrees check data trying to work out to the second when your hamstring is going to tear.

Take off the rose-coloured glasses and life has changed. I’m now married to a gorgeous woman and a father of two beautiful young children - an eight year-old boy and a five year-old daughter. The kids adore the cricket and I love helping teach them this magical game every weekend over summer.

My wife is a different kettle of fish she just can’t understand how you can watch something for five days and not come up with a result. Oh, my darling that’s part of its wonder! My annual leave in January was spent as a bowling machine in the front driveway. The joy that washed over me when my son finally played his first cover drive instead of hoicking every ball to cow corner was the most brilliant sensation, I hadn’t felt like that about cricket since Steve Waugh’s last ball hundred at the SCG.

“Bugger the silver, we’re going for gold!”

Kerry O’Keeffe exclaimed prior to that delivery and is one of the most famous pieces of modern cricket commentary, it’s now folk lore and rightly so. It was one Aussie sport’s great moments. I was there that day, our family always attend the Sydney Test, and it will live with me forever. “Going for it” is one of the great traits of our country, striving to lift its relatively small head above the global pack.

“Have a go” is ingrained in us, but is that one of the issues we as a nation have to deal with? Has our will to win become a win at all costs mentality that is partly to blame for the humiliating events that transpired in South Africa?

This isn’t about ball tampering, that is just a sideline to a whole chain of events that has ended with a nation questioning itself, a cricket team in turmoil and the careers and reputations of three elite players in tatters. Australia talk about the spirit of cricket, the behaviour this side has displayed spits in the face of cricket. The sledging is downright ugly and plain unnecessary.

Australia asking for the stump microphones to be turned down for these test matches set the tone for this distasteful series and show cased the mentality of this team. Even before a ball was delivered shots were prepared to be fired. This was planned aggression and the series would begin on a knife edge.

Unsurprisingly things got heated. David Warner as usual stoking the fire, screaming like a banshee when AB De Villiers was run out, then followed the stairwell slanging match with Quinton de Kock. Is it any wonder the rest of the cricketing world abhors the Aussies. As a parent these are not things you want to see your children mimic on their field of dreams.

Then came #SandpaperGate, the shame and then the deceit. What happened to fair play and respect, for not only your opposition but the game and your team mates? As a parent you try to build resilience into your kids which is difficult to achieve at the best of times but certainly not helped when their heroes, their role models, first port of call when things got a bit tough in South Africa was not come up with better devised tactics but cheat. Not only immeasurably wrong but the easy out.

Steve Smith then failed the leadership test by not only agreeing to this stupid idea by the side’s budding Einstein David Warner, hey Dave remember this is televised around the world, but Smith and Warner the “Leadership Group” then called on the youngest member Cameron Bancroft whose position in the side was already perilous to do the Devil’s work.

A good leader would have nipped that idea in the bud, a good leader would have reprimanded Warner, a good leader would have hopefully created a team culture that wouldn’t allow such an idea to pass a team mates lips let alone be brought into fruition. A good leader would have told the truth in the presser after they had been caught out! This is where the players lost me and why I think the bans handed out by Cricket Australia are just.

That presser was an opportunity to come clean and gain a shred of decency, yes we ball tampered but at least we’re mature enough to admit to it. Nope they delivered a stack of lies topped with a dollop of deceit to protect David Warner of all people! He came up with the idea, the least he could have done was attend the media conference and join the confession. Instead Smith not only threw Bancroft under the bus, he backed it over the leadership group which meant fast bowlers Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, who have been in this group in the past, were potentially placed under suspicion.

Lying, deceiving, and stabbing your mates in the back while protecting the one bloke who shouldn’t be - more great life lessons for my kids to learn from their cricketing Gods.

Australian’s are brought up to help your mates out but also play hard but fair, that all sounds like echoes from a previous era. Those values have disappeared from this modern professional age where victory is all that matters.

Who cares how it was achieved, winners are celebrated and celebrity is feted. Is this the culture I want for my children to believe in? I think I’d rather them enjoy their sport played in the right spirit and if they win that’s fine but if they lose that’s just as good.

Accept that if they try their best that’s good enough for me and should be good enough for them and if you lose congratulate the other side. You can walk off proudly with your head held high, winning is not everything.

“Bugger the gold, silver shines just as brightly.”

The Australian cricket team’s dressing room will be a better place for Smith, Warner and Bancroft not being in it. They now have time away from the international spotlight to reflect on their actions and through the help of family and Cricket Australia earn back the respect of the game, the nation, their loved ones, team mates but most importantly themselves and return to the sacred ground of the sheds as better people. If it was up to the ICC only Smith would have missed the 4th Test.

Warner could have played, unbelievable! Warner should have been suspended for sheer stupidity! Can you believe that? Well I can actually, ball tampering according to the ICC is such a minor misdemeanour it brings a 3 demerit-point penalty, a chicken feed fine for these multi-millionaires (Smith and Warner anyway), the balls is changed, and the opposition gets credited 5 runs.

Wow talk about swinging a big bat, that’s one almighty toothpick the ICC wield on the issue. What that does say is maybe ball tampering is more prevalent than cricketers and the ICC want us fans knowing?

I will still support the game I love dearly and the Australian team. I feel for the fans and the players left in the side for the abuse they are no doubt going to cop.

The team culture must change though if they want to be truly respected again. This may be the watershed moment that changes cricket and sport in this country forever. The spotlight has been shone on our values and way of life and it has revealed some unsightly scabs.

It’s time to rip them off and begin the healing. You can’t sandpaper these cracks, they’re too deep. This is the tipping point, if we want it to be. Win at all costs, whatever it takes, gain an edge are not virtues I want my children to hold.

As parents, my wife and I are trying to teach our kids the right way in life not only in sport. We are far from perfect, just ask our kids, but I figure as a father who is out there every Saturday, along with thousands of other mums and dads volunteering their time, if I can show the kids the right spirit to play sport than that’s a start.

How can I explain these events to my kids?

Luckily mine are too young to grasp the gravity of this situation but I’m waiting for the day those questions come.