Former Australian captain Ian Chappell believes that Steve Smith “might get back the captaincy” only if there aren't “many other choices” to replace Test skipper Tim Paine.
After Australia suffered an embarrassing 1-2 Test series defeat against India’s second-string team at home, Paine has been severely criticized by the former cricketers for his performance with the gloves and tactics as captain with some expecting change in the leadership soon.
Well, Test vice-captain Pat Cummins and Smith seemed to be the front runners to replace Paine as Australia Test captain if the team management and Cricket Australia look for the change in the captaincy following the Border-Gavaskar Trophy loss to India.
Chappell told “Wide World of Sports”: “Yeah sure, he might get the captaincy again but I think it's only going to be in the circumstances where there's not much another choice.”
Many have been batted for Smith despite his involvement in the infamous ball-tampering scandal in 2018, although, his two-year leadership ban ended last year, and he is now eligible to lead the side again.
However, Chappell, who captained Australia from 1971-1975, questioned the biased treatment of CA towards David Warner who was also involved in the “sandpaper-gate” scandal and handed a lifelong leadership ban as he felt Smith’s “crime” in the Cape Town scandal was greater than that of the latter.
He further asked, “Why aren't Smith and Warner in the same category? If Smith only gets a 12 (24) month ban on captaincy, why doesn't Warner only get that? Or if Warner gets a lifetime ban on captaincy, why doesn't Smith? Because Smith's crime in my eyes was greater than Warner's.”
Noteworthy, CA’s investigation had claimed that Smith and Cameron Bancroft knew what they were getting into, but it was Warner who made the “plan to attempt to artificially alter the condition of the ball” in South Africa back in 2018.
(With PTI Inputs)
