Debuting with a comeback
Ex-Australian captain Smith gets half-century in league’s opener
KING CITY— Former Australian skipper Steve Smith took the first step away from the balltampering scandal that derailed his career with an innings of 61 Thursday in the opening game of the Global T20 Canada cricket tournament.
Smith helped the Toronto Nationals to a six-wicket win against the Vancouver Knights.
It was a welcome return to the cricket pitch for the 29-year-old star batsman after a threemonth absence that saw him pilloried for cheating.
“Honestly, when I’m out in the middle, everything else is a blur,” he told reporters after the game. “I just concentrate on what I’m doing. It’s almost like my haven, I guess, if you want to call it that. I just love being out in the middle and playing the game.
“The Toronto Nationals team has been great. Everyone’s been really accepting.”
Smith was watching from the sidelines in the final moments with Toronto needing 25 runs to win from the final two overs and four from the last over. New Zealand’s Anton Devcich, who finished out the innings with Toronto captain Darren Sammy, led the Nationals with 92. Sammy, who had 22, won the game with a six with four balls remaining, pushing the Toronto score to 231 for four. Three sixes in the penultimate over helped the Toronto cause.
Smith was stumped by Chadwick Walton after missing a Fawad Ahmed delivery. Smith, who was almost caught on 27, hit one six and eight fours in compiling his 12th T20 halfcentury.
Much of the pre-tournament attention has been on Smith, whose career took a nosedive in March for cheating in a test match in South Africa. David Warner, the former Aussie vicecaptain also embroiled in the scandal, is at the Canadian event as a member of the Win- nipeg Hawks. Both men have been banned for a year by Cricket Australia, although they are allowed to play abroad. That ruling did not help them in the high-profile Indian Premier League, which cancelled their lucrative contracts.
A Cricket Australia investigator found that Warner instruct- ed Cameron Bancroft how to carry out the tampering with a piece of sandpaper during a break in play on the third day of the third cricket test against South Africa. Bancroft was banned for nine months.
Smith, who as captain took responsibility for the cheating, was seen to have let both cricket and Australia down in a dramatic fall from grace.
“Look I’m not going to lie. It’s been a difficult time in my life, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But I’ve accepted my punishment, I’ve accepted what I’ve gone through. And I’m moving forward. Part of my sort of rehab is playing cricket as well.”
Thursday’s game was played in the tight — at-least cricketwise — confines of the Maple Leaf Cricket Club just north of Toronto. The bleachers were largely empty when the first ball was bowled at 4 p.m. but the crowd grew somewhat. Organizers did not announce the attendance.