Sandpapergate: Bancroft lays the blame on Warner

Melbourne, December 26

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Former Australia opening batsman Cameron Bancroft has broken his silence on the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa, casting David Warner as the instigator and himself as an impressionable rookie who just wanted to “fit in” to the team.

Bancroft, who was suspended for nine months for his part in the ‘Sandpapergate’ scandal, told player-turned-commentator Adam Gilchrist that Warner had asked him to manipulate the ball and he had readily agreed.

“Dave (Warner) suggested to me to carry the action out on the ball given the situation we were in in the game and I didn’t know any better,” Bancroft, whose ban expires on December 29, said. “I didn’t know any better because I just wanted to fit in and feel valued, really — as simple as that. The decision was based around my values, what I valued at the time and I valued fitting in... You hope that fitting in earns you respect and with that, I guess, there came a pretty big cost for the mistake.”

Warner cast as villain

Warner was earlier identified by a Cricket Australia investigation as the main instigator of the plan to scuff up the ball. He also said several times during a March media conference that he took “full responsibility for the part I played” in the scandal.

Bancroft’s comments came five days after Smith said he had no part in plotting to alter the condition of the ball but had heard the plan being hatched in the dressing room. He said he had failed as a leader to prevent the plan from being carried out.

Bancroft said he had been a willing accomplice because he was worried that he might let the team down. “I would have gone to bed and I would have felt like I had let everybody down,” said the 26-year-old. “I would have felt like I had let the team down. I would have left like I had hurt our chances to win the game of cricket.” — Reuters

Smith blames CA executives for ‘toxic’ culture

  Melbourne: Banned former Australian captain Steve Smith on Wednesday said Cricket Australia executives James Sutherland and Pat Howard played a key role in spreading the toxic “win at all costs” culture in the team that led to the infamous ball-tampering scandal. “I think back to Hobart when we lost there against South Africa (November 2016) and it was our fifth straight loss in Test cricket I think after three Tests in Sri Lanka,” the 29-year-old Smith said in an interview. “And I remember James Sutherland and Pat Howard coming into the rooms there and actually saying ‘We don’t pay you to play, we pay you to win’. 

   “So, for me, that was I think a little bit disappointing to say. We don’t go out there to try and lose games of cricket, we go out there to try and win and play the best way we can,” said Smith. While Sutherland resigned from his position as CA chief executive after the incident, team performance head Howard was sacked last month after review by an independent committee. 

   In fact, Howard was one of CA’s investigation team members that questioned Smith and other players in the aftermath of the scandal. “If you’re talking about cultures and stuff, you only have to look back a couple of months before South Africa and we won an Ashes series here in Australia 4-0 and people are saying the culture’s really good and everything’s good,” Smith said. — PTI