Cricbuzz Staff •
The players involved will continue to get legal and welfare support from the ACA. © Getty
Australian Cricketers Association (ACA) questioned Cricket Australia’s (CA) sanction on three players – Steven Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft – involved in the ball-tampering incident. While, ACA accepted the trio had committed a ‘very serious mistake’, it raised objections over the severity of punishments handed out by the CA.
Smith and Warner were banned from playing international and state cricket for a year, while Bancroft was exiled for nine months. The sanction also stated that Smith cannot take a leadership role for two years and Warner can never captain the Australian cricket team.
The ACA said in its statement that ‘the game must be supported by rigorous and fair processes’ and ‘there are a number of glaring and clear anomalies in the process to date which causes the ACA to query the severity and proportionality of the proposed sanctions.’
Steve is a good man who has made a significant error and has owned it.
He has my respect.
The @ACA_Players will continue to support him and his colleagues.
— Alistair Nicholson (@AlistairNichol6) March 29, 2018
Below are the points:
– The grading and sanctions proposed are considerably higher than the ICC’s grading and sanctions
– The disproportion between the proposed sanctions and those previously handed down in world cricket for ‘changing the condition of the ball’ – including by captains of international teams applying artificial substances
– The activation of CA’s Board as a deliberative body on the proposed sanctions;
– That public statements by CA to date have not referenced consideration of contextual factors including the environment in South Africa during the series and the impacts on individual players;
– The rush to place players before the world’s media last Saturday night without the benefit of considered and coherent advice.
There is genuine remorse here shown by Cameron.
The welfare of the players is vital through this period.
— Alistair Nicholson (@AlistairNichol6) March 29, 2018
The players involved will continue to get legal and welfare support from the ACA, which also wanted the proposed cultural review of the incident to be conducted independently, where they will consider all facts and context around the incident and will also examine CA’s response and sanctions.
© Cricbuzz
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