The Aussie Rules season is starting here and the back pages are full of it. But a year ago the newspapers were crammed, front and back, with the scandal that rocked cricket and threatened to engulf Australian life.
It was during the Cape Town Test in March 2018 that Cameron Bancroft was caught on TV cameras roughing up the ball with sandpaper, which he then tried to hide down his trousers.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull led the outcry. ‘We all woke this morning shocked and bitterly disappointed by the news from South Africa,’ he said. ‘It seemed completely beyond belief that the Australian cricket team had been involved in cheating.
Steve Smith cries after the sandpaper scandal but will return to action in the IPL
David Warner, who devised the deceit, is also set to return to action in the IPL
‘Our cricketers are role models and cricket is synonymous with fair play.’
Cricket Australia (CA) banned Bancroft for nine months. Loudmouth vice-captain David Warner, who devised the deceit, and Steve Smith, the 45th Test captain of Australia, were both excommunicated for a year.
Bancroft’s ban expired at the end of December but he is not under consideration for immediate national selection. Smith and Warner certainly are, once their exiles end this Friday. And in Dubai, their rehabilitation has begun. It is a journey that will likely see them return to Australian ranks in England for the World Cup and the Ashes this summer.
Tim Ford, the Harvard-educated leadership consultant, was employed to oversee the reconciliation process that involved the two tarnished men speaking to the increasingly in-form ODI squad ahead of their five-match series that began with victory over Pakistan on Friday.
Cameron Bancroft’s ban expired at the end of December but he is not under consideration for immediate national selection
The disgraced pair will not play in Dubai. It was merely a meeting to break the ice.
The two outcasts made positive noises about the reunion. Smith said: ‘Everything is on the right track.’ Warner claimed they had been met with ‘open arms and hugs and kisses’.
But it is probably naive to imagine that it is all suddenly sweetness and light. It was, after all, only a few months ago that new coach Justin Langer admitted Australian cricket was a ‘dysfunctional family’.
Aaron Finch, the ODI captain, said of Smith and Warner’s trip: ‘What’s important is they’re really keen to slot back into how this current side works.
‘They were probably as nervous as anyone coming back into the group. It is a different time and they have been out for quite a while.’
There is also the matter of the national mood. Some of the public here are not ready to forgive. The Australian cricket team is too important to the country’s sense of identity for easy redemption.
Warner has kept his mouth shut almost entirely since the scandal. Big-money offers for interviews have been declined. He is following the advice of his new Sydney-based agent James Erskine, once manager to Muhammad Ali and Tiger Woods.
The confrontational air that garnered Warner so many detractors has been replaced by a dignified silence. And he, along with Smith and Bancroft, is said to have carried
