New Delhi: Former Indian captain Kapil Dev opened up on the ball-tampering incident that has hit Australian cricket hard and said that the entire team’s involvement in the issue is something, “unheard of.”
“I can understand if a player is caught tampering the ball and he get sanctions from the world governing body. But if the whole team is behind tampering the ball, it’s a dangerous precedent. Something unheard of,” Kapil said to the Times of India.
The 1983 World Cup winning skipper also said that Steve Smith didn’t set a good example as a leader through this incident and also added that it was needless for Australia to take up such a way despite winning the first Test convincingly.
Smith along with teammate Cameron Bancroft had acted contrary to the spirit of the game and a punishment for them is on the cards by Cricket Australia. But Kapil refused to comment on what punishment should they receive.
“It’s not my job to decide the punishment. There are authorities to decide that and if I am not mistaken, they have already given a one-match ban for Smith. But as a former player I would love to see cricket played in the right spirit,” he said.
The former Indian all-rounder also said that he never tampered the ball and added, “We didn’t know how to tamper the ball during our time. It was the Pakistani fast bowlers who did ball tampering to get reverse swing by carrying bottle caps and all. Those days there wasn’t any rule to define ball tampering as well. But coming back to the ball tampering issue today, it’s never easy to understand the reason behind the entire team being involved in ball tampering in this incident. It’s intriguing.”
Smith, Bancroft and Warner to leave South Africa
Following the shameful ball tampering incident, Smith along with teammates Warner and Bancroft are all set to depart from South Africa and wouldn’t have any further role to play in the ongoing tour of the Proteas. Australia thus trailing 1-2 in the series would walk into the final Test match led by stand-in skipper Tim Paine.
Matt Renshaw, Joe Burns and Glenn Maxwell have been named as the replacements and would join the team on Wednesday.