One of the captains competing in this first-grade grand final is a laid-back character. His name is Mitch Smith. And when not on the field, he lazes under the clubhouse topless – his shaggy-rug torso and total lack of self-consciousness on full display. He recently ran water on to a field and a rival player quipped: “It’s 30 degrees. What’re ya doin’ wearing a jumper?” Smith barked back something and ran off the field, no offence taken, seemingly. No one tried to rattle him by making a lewd remark about someone close to him.

The grand final scene occurred when Smith’s South Tamworth beat Old Boys at No.1 Oval in Tamworth last weekend. But it could have been a local cricket match at any oval in any town in regional Australia, from Warrnambool to Wagga to Mount Isa.

At the same time the Tamworth grand final was being played, Australia and South Africa were engaged in the third Test at Newlands in Cape Town. Overlooked by Table Mountain and Devil's Peak, the ground is, like No.1 Oval, a charming erstwhile throwback, far removed from the high-tech mega stadiums cricket is played at in Australia. But that is where the similarities end. No one from Old Boys and Souths brought sandpaper on to the field to try and alter the flight of the ball.

Sure, one match was a country grand final and the other a Test duel between bitter rivals. However, in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal, it has become clear that Australians will no longer tolerate the hyperaggressiveness and win-at-all-costs mindset of our top cricketers. 

Australians have demanded the banishment of a culture which spawned a failed subterfuge that brought shame to a country and created headlines from Mumbai to Hobart. But how can that be achieved?

For Tim Grosser, Gunnedah-based NSW Country selection chairman for cricket, the ball-tampering incident was the perfect storm of outrageous behaviour which framed his long-held belief in the most dramatic manner; that our international cricketers are a mob of overpaid, overhyped and overindulged “spoilt brats” who wear entitlement the same way Dennis Lillee wore a gold necklace – gaudily; their global strut an appalling advertisement of Australian sport and culture.

Grosser examines and judges our international cricketers through at least three lenses: a former first-class cricketer from a bygone era when the game was played for the purest reasons; an elderly Australian who recoils at the pampered, bubble existence the elite cricketers live in; and a country cricket official plugged into the sport’s untainted version.

He would no doubt applaud my suggestion that Steve Smith and David Warner play for country sides to fulfil their Cricket Australia-imposed 100 hours of voluntary service in community cricket. In doing so, they would experience a sport and communities far removed from fat contracts, million-dollar Bondi mansions, first-class flights and six-figure endorsements. 

The Sydney duo would be exposed to a sport underpinned by ethics, where winning without sportsmanship is anathema to the players and the supporters. It was an environment that shaped Mark Taylor, the Leeton-born former Australian captain, and someone Smith and Warner should look to as a model of playing to win, without sacrificing the spirit of the game, as though it was meaningless.

Because the spirit of the game is not meaningless. That’s why it is enshrined in the game’s laws, with its preamble stating: “Cricket is a game that owes much of its unique appeal to the fact that it should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game. Any action which is seen to abuse this Spirit causes injury to the game itself.”

Souths captain Smith and his Old Boys counterpart, Ben Middlebrook, know that instinctively. As does every other country cricketer. And they strive to uphold it, or risk doing their sport, their teammates and themselves a grave disservice. 

Smith, Warner and their ball-tampering co-conspirator, Cameron Bancroft, know it too. But they mainlined winning at all costs for so long they forgot it. A stint playing country cricket would change that.

Smith’s highly emotional press conference at Sydney Airport on Thursday night laid bare before the world a man begging for forgiveness, for a second chance. It was a tragic reminder of what can happen when a feverish winning mentality garrottes morality. 

Beside the plane trees lining Kable Avenue in Tamworth, away from the big city glare, they love to win. But they know that losing is part of the game. They also know that good people, particularly young men, make terrible mistakes. And from that, learning and maturity often flow. As does forgiveness.