Cheats never prosper. Unless ...

In the concluding part of the Times' series of extracts from his latest book, Ed Smith asks if sportsmanship is indeed dead. Cheats never prosper, feels Smith, unless they play in the moral maze of modern-day sport.

Smith compares rugby, golf, and cricket, with a word about how conventions are always changing, and says that while some crimes are upgraded in our imagination, others are downgraded.

It is often argued that cheating is getting worse and sportsmanship is declining. But one fact often ignored is not only that rules change, but also that conventions evolve. In cricket, not so long ago, most batsmen (in theory anyway) claimed to “walk” - in other words, if they knew they had nicked a catch to the wicketkeeper, they did not wait for the umpire's decision. Only recently has “standing”, when you know you have edged the ball, become typical behaviour in the first-class game.