In cricketing terms, the cheating that took place in the last Test match between South Africa and Australia and has since occupied huge swathes of media print and broadcast footage had a dismally familiar feel.

Cricket Australia’s chief executive James Sutherland doggedly described the doctoring of the ball being used by Australia’s bowlers against South Africa’s batsmen in Cape Town last Friday (March 23) as "not in the spirit of the game", before eventually conceding that the word “cheating” might be appropriate.

It was cheating. And it was old school cheating. Attempts either to polish or roughen one side of the ball in order to get it to swing in flight - by means ranging from "not within the spirit of the game" to "cheating" - are legion in the sport’s history.

Who knows how many unrecorded instances have taken place? Nobody. But there have been enough recorded instances to be going on with.

In 1994, England’s Michael Atherton got into bother in a Test match against South Africa at Lord’s when television cameras caught him reaching into his pocket and then rubbing a substance onto the ball. He said it was dirt which he used to dry his hands. He was fined £2,000 ($2,800/€2,300) for failing to disclose this dirt to the umpire.

Pakistan’s Waqar Younis became the first player to receive a suspension for ball tampering in 2000. He was fined half his match fee after it was ruled that he had lifted the seam off the ball during a game against South Africa in Colombo.

The following year six Pakistan players were fined for ball tampering in a domestic one-day competition, the Ramadan Cup, and in 2003 Pakistan bowler Shoaib Akhtar was banned for two one-day Tests and fined 75 per cent of his match fee after television cameras had shown him scratching the surface of the ball during a match against New Zealand.

In January 2004 Rahul Dravid of India was fined after television pictures showed him applying a half-sucked lolly to one side of the ball in a match against Zimbabwe…and so it has gone on.

Regardless of the vintage of this particular piece of sporting espionage, however, it begs some concerning questions.

To be sure, the International Cricket Council acted swiftly in this instance, announcing sanctions on the two players initially flagged in the incident following the Australian admissions on Saturday (March 24). 

But what was the substance of this punishment? For Australia's captain Steve Smith, a one match ban and the loss of his match fee. Ouch! And for young Cameron Bancroft, who covertly applied sandpaper to ball - at the behest, it later appeared, of vice-captain David Warner - the loss of 75 per cent of his match fee.

What, you wonder, would Bancroft have had to do to forfeit his entire match fee? Set the ball ablaze with lighter fuel?

That is not a signal from the International Cricket Council (ICC) to the wider world about cheating. That is not even a slap on the wrist. That is a shrug of the shoulders.

What turned out to be the key involvement of vice-captain David Warner was not known at that point, although he has now received the most stringent of the punishments handed down yesterday by Cricket Australia.

Warner and Smith are banned from international and domestic cricket for 12 months, with Warner no longer being considered for future senior leadership roles. Bancroft has been banned for nine months.

Those punishments seem better to fit the crime than the ICC’s risible efforts. But they fall some way short of satisfying some observers, with Australia’s former fast bowler Jeff Thomson expressing the most extreme view by saying Smith and the "leadership group" which he said had been aware of the ploy should be banned from cricket for life.

Meanwhile, the likes of Kevin Pietersen and the Australia Sports Commission have called for Smith to go,

That is extreme. But what exactly did Smith mean by "leadership group"? Was this really, as some subsequent reports have suggested, a case of Warner going rogue and manipulating a young team member to break the rules?

Smith maintains he didn’t know exactly what was happening - but the ICC statement accompanying their initial suspension was unequivocal, even if the punishment it accompanied wasn’t.

"As captain, Steve Smith must take full responsibility for the actions of his players and it is appropriate that he be suspended," said ICC chief executive David Richardson.

If that is so, how can that responsibility halt with him?

As coach, Darren Lehmann surely sets the tone and the culture. And if this can happen without him being aware, what does that say about his grip on the job?

Another point – if, as Sutherland insists, the trio sanctioned are the only ones involved, what are we to make of the absence of those who actually bowled the damaged ball? Did they not notice a little difference to it?

Stepping away to a different focal length – why, given the effectiveness of the Australian bowling in their winning Ashes series, would they need to resort to such methods? And given that they did, the attempt proved singularly unsuccessful as they lost the third Test decisively.

Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull professed himself "shocked and disappointed" by the actions of his country’s cricket team.

That intervention recalled the comments made in 1981 by the New Zealand Prime Minister of the time, Robert Muldoon, over the decision taken by Australia’s captain Greg Chappell for the final delivery of a one-day match to be sent down underarm to prevent New Zealand from having a chance to score the six they needed to win.

Muldoon described it as ‘"he most disgusting incident I can recall in the history of cricket".

The - victorious - Australian side were then booed from the field.

That was a horrible misjudgement from Chappell - whose instruction was issued to his own younger brother Trevor. But although it palpably infringed the spirit of the game, it was within the rules.

The latest controversy stems from something outside the rules - albeit banally and unproductively so. But the emotion it has generated, particularly back home in Australia, makes it clear that people are engaged in something more than an abraded piece of leather. That they are, indeed, concerned about the spirit of the game; without which, ultimately, games grow grim and unattractive.