Former Australian captain Ian Chappell believes that Steve Smith will never lead the Australian cricket team again. The 74-years old former right-handed batsman remarked that ball-tampering incident as stupidity while he also believes that it will affect the Australian cricket.

After getting caught to conduct the ball-tampering incident in the Cape Town Test, skipper Steven Smith and vice-captain David Warner have faced huge suspensions from Cricket Australia (CA) along with young opener Cameron Bancroft. While ICC has only suspended Steven Smith for one Test (also fined 100% match fees), CA has banned Smith and Warner for one year while Bancroft has faced nine months banned from the international and domestic cricket.

Also read: ICC will organise a special meeting to review cricketers’ punishments

In the addition, Warner will never be a captain again for the national side while Smith and Bancroft will have to wait one more year after the end of their suspensions to able for leading the national side once again.

Also read: Hashim Amla says it is a sad moment for International cricket

Though there is a chance for 28-years old Smith to return to the captaincy for the Australian cricket team, former Australian captain Ian Chappell is not feeling positive on his leadership return for the national side.

Chappell recently told ESPNCricinfo, “I don’t see either of them (Smith or Warner) ever captaining Australia again. One of the most important things about being captain is that you have to earn the respect of your teammates. With the way this stupidity in Cape Town played out, I don’t think any of them could regain much respect with their teammates. So I think you can forget about either of them captaining Australia.”

Talking about the twelve months suspensions for Smith and Warner, Chappell commented, “They had to go for 12 months with Smith and Warner. I think if they would have only given six months to them and they tried to play in Australia’s next summer, the booing and crowd reaction would have been so bad. It would have been very hard for the players and it would not have been a very good situation for Cricket Australia.”