Foul play is a crime

In the pre-dawn dark, we are waking to the closing overs of the day's play in the Ashes being broadcast from Australia. We are impatient for the score and what has happened during the long hot day while we were sleeping through an English winter's night. We hope that the day has gone well.

Old cricket fans will remember turning on the radio many years ago to hear about their heroes' triumphs and tribulations. It is timeless, thrilling and romantic. Or was.

What we see now is a descent into premeditated violence that, was it not on a grass field with '¨a white painted line around its boundary, would form the basis of a pretty serious sentencing exercise in crown courts up and down the land.

The charming injunction from the Australian cricketer, to "get ready for a f***ing broken arm", would have made for quite a tense piece of courtroom theatre had indeed the promise been made good.

Let us see where that would get us under the sentencing guidelines. First, there was intent to do really serious harm (a broken arm should count as really serious harm). So, a section 18 then, probably category 2, on the basis '¨of lesser harm and higher culpability - bearing in mind that a weapon, a hard ball at 90mph from 22 yards away, '¨was used.

There was a significant '¨degree of premeditation, there was deliberate targeting of the victim (the bowler played the leading role in the group or gang), and the offence was motivated by hostility towards the victim's membership of a particular ethnic group: the England cricket team.

So the 'starting point' is six years' custody (or 18 months if a section 20, or 26 weeks' custody if actual bodily harm range 5) - nine years on a section18.

There would no doubt be credit for a guilty plea, as there were about 40,000 witnesses, a TV and an audio recording. That means a third off, so four years is the starting point.

There are various aggravating and mitigating features: lack of the offender's maturity for one, but presence of others to make it more serious, so they probably balance out. There won't be any remorse, that is for sure. So, with full credit, let's say three and half years' imprisonment, being generous to the defendant.

But all this is amusing because he was playing cricket. As for '¨a tackle that drops a player on '¨his head risking spinal damage, or the lunge at speed towards another player daring to have possession of a football that ends his career prematurely, these players are not liable '¨for anything.

They can bite, kick, punch, fell, batter, clout and threaten to their heart's content with impunity - all because it is '¨'only a game'.

Intentional violence in sport is not sport, it is crime. It should be treated as such. Prosecute and you might stop it. We want to enjoy turning the radio on these frosty mornings - however badly England are playing. SJ