Bancroft's dilemma

"In March 2018, the Australian cricket team was involved in a ball-tampering scandal during the third Test match against South Africa in Cape Town when Cameron Bancroft was caught by television cameras trying to rough up one side of the ball to make it swing in flight. Captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner were found to be involved and all three received unprecedented sanctions from Cricket Australia."

Bancroft used sandpaper to rough up the ball. He was banned from international and domestic cricket for nine months.

Bancroft has now admitted that he acted on the suggestion of David Warner and that he made 'a massive mistake' in implementing the suggestion. Sequence of events up to this is understandable. Aussies are reportedly not known for their cricketing ethics and they go for the kill in every match. They seem to claim "all is fair in cricket." But what unfolds after this intrigues any logical mind.

Bancroft accepts that he had a choice. He could have ignored Warner's plea and avoided the public infamy that caught up with Australian cricket. He regrets complying with Warner's suggestion. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that he would have been happier if he had not tampered with the ball.

But alas, no !  Bancroft says he would have felt bad for letting his team down ! He has painted this as a catch-22 situation of damned if you do and damned if you don't.

How do we explain Bancroft's dilemma? Though he admits that he was not a 'victim' of Warner's plan in the sense that he could have decided not to comply with the latter's suggestion, if the plan proposed to him was actually a Morton's fork as he claims, then he was really a victim of Warner's game plan. If Warner had not made this proposition, Bancroft would not have been in this pickle.

Why did Bancroft take the huge risk of getting caught indulging in an unethical act? If he had underestimated the risk of exposure, he is downright stupid. If he had thought that the act was not unfair given the circumstances of defeat glaring at the Australian team, he must have philosophised that "end justified the means".

Does one's opinion on one's choice depend on whether the (im)morality of the choice is found out by others or not? In case the TVs had not captured Bancroft's disgraceful act, would he have felt any pang at all or would he have been disconsolate nonetheless? Is every dirty trick OK as long as it is not found out?

Does an unethical act become less so if it is done for the sake of one's team and not for personal benefit?