Former Australian bowling coach David Saker said the finger-pointing in the infamous ball-tampering scandal in 2018 is going on and on and fingers can also be pointed at him.
His comments came after Cameron Bancroft – the man responsible for carrying sandpaper onto Newlands during the third Test against South Africa and was seen using it – reopened the infamous ball-tampering scandal by hinting that the Australian bowlers had knowledge of the plot, but only him, Steve Smith, and David Warner were handed heavy bans by Cricket Australia (CA).
Saker was the Australia bowling coach during the 2018 ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town and left the job in early 2019. He is now working with Sri Lanka’s national team since 2019.
The former coach believes that the 2018 sandpapergate controversy will forever haunt Australian cricket much like Trevor Chappell’s underarm ball incident against New Zealand 40 years ago in 1981.
While terming the Cape Town incident of 2018 as a collective failure, Saker said the Australians made a “monumental mistake” that could have been prevented but unfortunately, it happened.
Saker told Sydney Morning Herald: “Obviously a lot of things went wrong at that time. The finger-pointing is going to go on and on and on. There were a lot of people to blame. It could have been me to blame, it could have been someone else. It could have been stopped and it wasn't, which is unfortunate.”
he further added, “You could point your finger at me, you could point your finger at Boof (then-coach Darren Lehmann), could you point it at other people, of course, you could. The disappointing thing is it's never going to go away. Regardless of what's said. We all know that we made a monumental mistake. The gravity wasn't as plain until it all came out.”
On the pacer Bancroft, the former bowling coach noted: “Cameron's (Bancroft) a very nice guy. He's just doing it to get something off his chest ... He's not going to be the last.”
After Bancroft’s statement, CA announced that the board was open to a re-investigation into the incident, but Saker wasn't sure what a reopened investigation would achieve.
He signed off by saying, “I don't think it'd be unfair. I just don't know what they're going to find out. It's like the underarm, it's never going to go away.”
(With PTI Inputs)
