Embattled Steve Smith was on Monday facing a career-defining week which is likely to see him deposed as Australia captain and slapped with a lengthy suspension after admitting being the mastermind of the ball-tampering scandal which has rocked cricket.<\/p>\n
Smith, 28, stood down from his role as skipper for the remainder of the third Test against South Africa on Sunday and was then banned for one match by the ICC.<\/p>\n
His team\u2019s weekend of shame then ended in a crushing 322-run rout. Set an unlikely 430 to win, Australia were bowled out for a paltry 107 with fast bowler Morne Morkel taking five for 23.<\/p>\n
Now Smith is expected to face a harsh sanction from under-pressure Cricket Australia for his role in the plot which saw teammate Cameron Bancroft tamper with the ball by using yellow sticky tape before desperately trying to conceal the evidence down the front of his trousers.<\/p>\n
\u201cA little birdie tells me that the weak ICC punishment isn\u2019t anywhere near what Cricket Australia is thinking,\u201d tweeted former England star Kevin Pietersen.<\/p>\n
Smith, whose talents with the bat have drawn breathless comparisons with Aussie great Don Bradman, is not the only man caught in the crosshairs.<\/p>\n
David Warner also stood down from his role as vice-captain on Sunday while questions remain over coach Darren Lehmann although Smith said the former Australian international was not involved in the conspiracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a horrible 24 hours — I want to apologise to our fans and those back home,\u201d said Tim Paine who was handed the stand-in skipper role on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re struggling but the reality and the enormity of what\u2019s happened has probably started to sink in. I don\u2019t think we expected this to be as big as it has been, the fall-out we have seen from back home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith, also docked 100 percent of his match fee by the ICC, will definitely miss the fourth and final Test in Johannesburg from Friday due to his ban.<\/p>\n
However, Bancroft, the 25-year-old opening batsman, escaped an ICC suspension. He was instead fined 75 percent of his fee, warned and hit by three demerit points.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision made by the leadership group of the Australian team to act in this way is clearly contrary to the spirit of the game, risks causing significant damage to the integrity of the match, the players and the sport itself and is therefore \u2018serious\u2019 in nature,\u201d said ICC chief executive David Richardson.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs captain, Steve Smith must take full responsibility for the actions of his players and it is appropriate that he be suspended.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith, who was out for just seven runs on Sunday, Warner and Bancroft were loudly booed by fans during Australia\u2019s second-innings surrender.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all woke up this morning shocked and bitterly disappointed by the news from South Africa,\u201d said Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seemed completely beyond belief that the Australian cricket team had been involved in cheating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cricket Australia (CA) chief James Sutherland issued an apology to fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo our Australian cricket fans, we are sorry,\u201d said Sutherland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis behaviour calls into question the integrity of the team and Cricket Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Africa captain Faf du Plessis, who has himself twice been sanctioned for ball-related offences, gave Smith qualified support for coming clean.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously he\u2019s trying to take responsibility so there is right in that but there\u2019s also a right in that people are responsible for their own actions,\u201d he said Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what the right answer is but I can understand it\u2019s a really tough time for him to be in right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith had insisted on Saturday he wouldn\u2019t resign the captaincy he has held for three years since succeeding Michael Clarke.<\/p>\n
However, former wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist told Australian broadcaster Channel Ten the captaincy was a \u201ctough position to hold after you have admitted to what you\u2019ve admitted to and carry on with any faith from everyone watching\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralian cricket now — and the integrity of Australian cricket — is the laughing-stock of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Australian seamer Jason Gillespie added in Britain\u2019s Guardian newspaper: \u201cSteve Smith\u2019s time as Australia\u2019s captain is surely up. It is impossible to envisage a scenario where he stays in the job. This is a train wreck.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Embattled Steve Smith was on Monday facing a career-defining week which is likely to see him deposed as Australia captain and slapped with a lengthy suspension after admitting being the mastermind of the ball-tampering scandal which has rocked cricket. Smith, 28, stood down from his role as skipper for the remainder of the third Test […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26060,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26058\/revisions\/26060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}