CA board considering calls for lifting bans

melbourne — Cricket Australia (CA) is considering a demand by the players’ union that ball-tampering bans on former captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft be lifted immediately, the governing body’s CEO Kevin Roberts said.

CA has come under pressure from the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) to end the bans following the release of the Longstaff review, which laid some of the blame for the Cape Town scandal.

“The ACA submission around the players’ sanctions was received by the board a few days ago,” Roberts told reporters.

“It was addressed to the board rather than to me or all management. So not for me to comment on a board matter other than to say that the board will be respecting that submission and giving it due consideration.”

Smith and vice-captain Warner were each suspended for 12 months after the ball-tampering scandal broke in March, while opening batsman Bancroft was banned for nine months.

The bans extend to the domestic Sheffield Shield and the Big Bash Twenty20 competition. A depleted Australia have struggled to recover from the crisis, with the Test team losing two of their last three matches since Tim Paine took over the captaincy in South Africa.

The one-day team, now led by Aaron Finch, have lost their last seven including a 5-0 whitewash by England and a stinging defeat in Sunday’s series-opener against South Africa in Perth.

Amid the teams’ struggles, a number of prominent cricket experts and former players have said the ball-tampering bans were overly harsh and offered various suggestions as to how the three should be rehabilitated.

Roberts, who was at the centre of an acrimonious pay dispute with players last year, said repairing relations with the players’ union remained a top priority.

Earlier on Wednesday, CA axed high-performance chief Pat Howard and broadcasting boss Ben Amarfio as fall-out from the Longstaff review continued. —