Cricket Australia has concluded that the ingredient used to tamper with? the ball by Australia vs South Africa in Cape Town was in fact sandpaper and not sticky tape as said by culprit Cameron Bancroft.
AFP
Steve Smith admitted that as skipper he was the mastermind behind the plot. He got a one-year ban along with David Warner while Bancroft was given 9 months.
Now while the item used to mess around with the ball may not be the one Bancroft said it was, but it does not change the new facts. The Aussies went against the spirit and rules of the game, destroyed the integrity of the sport and downright cheated in a match.
Even if these guys are able to make a comeback in a year's time, the stigma of them bringing the game into disrepute shall be too much to bear. History cannot be undone and it's something they will have to live with forever.
A year will pass quickly. In 2019 around this time the build up to the World Cup will have begun. Let's see what happens then but for now, these guys have a lot of time to think about what they did and why they did it.