XtraTime Web Desk: Australian cricket legend and former captain Ricky Ponting at last breaks his silence on the ball-tampering scandal involving Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.
Ponting believes the lengthy bans given to former Australia captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft for their roles in March’s ball-tampering scandal in South Africa have been a beneficial “shock” to world cricket.
Smith and his deputy Warner were given 12-month bans by Cricket Australia, with batsman Bancroft — the man who sandpapered the ball in a bid to aid reverse-swing during a Test match in Cape Town — was given a nine-month suspension.
The issue was discussed during a two-day meeting at Lord’s concluded on Tuesday of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) World Cricket Committee — of which Australia great Ponting is a member.
The committee, an advisory group whose chairman is former England captain Mike Gatting, has no power to implement decisions but makes suggestions to the International Cricket Council.
“As a group we were talking about the stance Cricket Australia took and how harsh that stance might have seemed to ban players for 12 months and nine months respectively,” Ponting told a press conference at Lord’s on Tuesday.
“It’s probably got the desired outcome, a kind of shock to world cricket.
“We have seen ball-tampering incidents happen probably more consistently over the last five or six years and to my mind it’s because little things have crept in that were allowed to get to a certain point and the tipping point was a pre-meditated act that the Australian players took part in South Africa.
“So I think we are all very supportive of the ICC stance to penalise anyone who steps out of line a lot more harshly than in the past.”