Beyond the boundary: The Sandpapergate scandal and the limits of transnational masculinity

Abstract

The public outrage expressed when Australian cricket players admitted to cheating during a Test match by using sandpaper to alter the surface of the match ball was, for some observers, matched by an incredulity captured in variants of the question, “how did they think they could get away with it?” Drawing upon insights from recent work within masculinity studies, this essay offers an explanation into how the players could overlook the severity of their action as both an affront to the code of cricket and in regard to the response it would bring. The players are seen to be functionaries within an organizational network of ‘transnational men’, which characteristically tends to provide those within its institutional framework with a sense of impunity towards ethically questionable conduct. The essay also provides a means for questioning the wider cultural and organizational environment that gave rise to the Sandpapergate episode, by considering cricket as an ‘unsustainable institution of men’.