Yeah, I think a lot of the reaction comes from basically two places:
- From the Australian public, this weird perception that we as Australians are actually above this kind of thing and that it's us that gets to look down on the other countries that cheat like this. So everyone within Australian is hurling their righteousness indignation based on that fact.
- From the international cricket public, there's a real sense of Australians finally getting their comeuppance. Finally, here's something concrete and cannot be explained away - the Australians were caught red-headed cheating. Of course, there's a huge amount of hypocrisy coming from these people too (Faf has been done twice for ball tampering, Atherton as well, etc). Of course, the difference here is that Steve Smith bizarrely admitted to everyone that it was a planned action by the senior members of the team.
Without downplaying the seriousness of it all, I do think the reaction has been a little bit over the top. But I agree with what some of the media commentators have said - here's actually a chance to start fresh and try and institute the cultural change within the Australian cricket set up that it desperately needs.
I think looking back, a lot of this really started with the sacking of Mickey Arthur and how that all went down. Arthur was trying to institute some discipline and instead, Cricket Australia backed the players.