The ball-tampering trio that was found guilty in the incidents took place in the third Test match of Australia’s tour to South Africa in the last month is still not out of trouble. Facing further embarrassment, Steve Smith, Cameron Bancroft and David Warner have been left out from the annual contract list which was released by Cricket Australia today.
After confessing to the plot of changing the condition of the ball by using illegal means, the trio was heavily criticised and condemned from the cricketing fraternity. Acting harshly on the evidenced gathered, Cricket Australia announced one-year ban each for David Warner and Steve Smith while Cameron Bancroft received a nine-month ban for his active role in the villainous act.
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All three involved players conducted their press conferences separately and confessed their part in the controversy. The penalties were later confirmed by the Cricket Australia administration. The cricketing world did deem them to be excessively harsh for something like ball-tampering.
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“For that reason, there has been a bit of a focus in this contracting period on white-ball cricket, as we look ahead to trying to win back-to-back World Cups.”, said Hohns. The new entrants in the list are the fast bowlers Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson and Andrew Tye, all-rounder Marcus Stoinis and wicket-keeper Alex Carey. Today Cricket Australia came ut with its list of 20 players who have been offered the annual contract by the board. The national selector Trevor Hohns said, “This period is set to include a significant amount of limited-overs cricket, including the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 in England and Wales.”
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Here is the full list –
Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine, Matthew Renshaw, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye.
