As per the recent reports in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, Australian coach Darren Lehmann has decided to resign from his duties ahead of the fourth Test against South Africa on Friday, as the fall-out from the ball-tampering scandal continued on Tuesday. Australia has fallen into the uproar after skipper Steve Smith had acknowledged on Saturday that senior cricketers planned to allow the opener, Cameron Bancroft, to tamper with the ball during the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town.

On Sunday, Smith was fined and banned from the fourth Test by the International Cricket Council and he and David Warner have been stepped down from their respective duties as captain and vice-captain pending a Cricket Australia investigation. The Australian cricket board expects to announce the results of the investigation in Johannesburg late on Tuesday and although Smith said the coaching staff had been ignorant of the connivance, Lehmann still had questions to answer.

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The former Test cricketer clearly played a part in trying to cover up the cheating by getting word to Bancroft that his use of some tape to try and tamper the ball had been spotted by the television cameras. The Daily Telegraph cited sources as saying Lehmann, who has made no public comment since the episode, planned to prevent the investigation by stepping down more than a year ahead of his illustrated exit after the 2019 Ashes series.

Lehmann took over the coaching responsibility from South African Mickey Arthur in 2013 in the wave of national team appointments that removed foreign coaches in favor of home-grown alternatives in cricket, soccer and rugby union.

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The former Australian skipper, Michael Clarke, thought that Lehmann was equally responsible whether he had known about the plan to cheat, or if he had not. As quoted in Nine Network, Clarke said, “If that’s the case, then the Australian head coach hasn’t got control of this Australian team. And if he does know about it, then he’s as accountable as anybody else.”