Australian opener Cameron Bancroft has made a sensational revelation in the ball-tampering saga. He mentioned that the bowlers were aware that the ball is being tampered with during the Cape Town Test in 2018. Australia were seen doing ball-tampering against South Africa in 2018, which turned things ugly for Australian cricket.
Cricket Australia (CA) banned the trio of Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner after this incident. Bancroft was the man seen rubbing the ball with a piece of sandpaper in his hand. However, he was a newcomer and had done that under the commands from the ‘leadership group’, he was handed a nine-month suspension. Smith and Warner were sidelined from cricketing activities for twelve months.
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Meanwhile, in a recent interview with The Guardian, Bancroft added a new angle by revealing that bowlers were aware of what unfolded on Cape Town’s turf.
“Yeah, look, all I wanted to do was to be responsible and accountable for my own actions and part. Yeah, obviously what I did benefits bowlers and the awareness around that, probably, is self-explanatory,” Bancroft told The Guardian when asked if the bowlers knew that the ball was being tampered with.
“Uh … yeah, look, I think, yeah, I think it’s pretty probably self-explanatory.”
Bancroft was 8-test-old at the time and was thought to be thrown under the bus by his senior pros. He got influenced and did that to gain stature for him in the dressing room. He admitted that he lost control over his values.
“Absolutely. I grew up idolising Test cricketers and that was a dream I wanted for me. Holding that so sacred to my heart made me a little naive and vulnerable to wanting to be embraced and a part of it all. At that point I hadn’t really grasped the concept that cricket’s just a game. Yes, you’re playing for Australia. Yes, it’s Test cricket. Yes, it’s something to be really proud of. But it is just a game,” he added.
“I invested too much to the point where I lost control of my values. What had become important to me was being liked, being well valued, feeling really important to my teammates, like I was contributing something by using sandpaper on a cricket ball. That’s something I don’t think I even understood until that mistake happened. But it’s part of the journey and a hard lesson I needed to learn.”
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In that Cape Town Test, Bancroft scored 77 runs in the first innings before things turned ugly later on in the match. He believes those 77 runs are his best knock that he has ever played in any format.
“No doubt. The first innings in Cape Town [in the fateful ball-tampering match]. That was the best innings I’ve probably played in any form of cricket. I scored in a lot of different areas, hit [14] boundaries and felt able to put pressure on the South African bowlers. Off the front and the back foot, I felt really good even though we struggled to build partnerships. It was a great confidence boost against quality bowling. Rabada, Philander, Morkel,” he mentioned.
