CHEAT... AUSSIE CRICKET CAPTAIN WHO COULD HAVE PLAYED FOR ENGLAND
ENGLAND may have had a lucky escape after it emerged yesterday that the Australian cricket captain at the centre of a cheating scandal had once considered playing for us.
Steve Smith, the world’s top batsman, stepped down as Australian captain and was suspended for one match after he admitted overseeing a balltampering plot during the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town.
The development sparked a “national day of shame” in Australia where Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull asked: “How can our team be engaged in cheating like this? It beggars belief.”
Yesterday it emerged that 27-year-old Smith had once thought about batting for England in one of sport’s greatest and most enduring rivalries.
Smith’s mother Gillian is from Kent and he has a British passport. Gillian, a teacher, met Smith’s biochemist father Peter while he was working in Britain.
After a whirlwind romance the pair married and Gillian emigrated to Australia. Smith was born in Sydney in 1989.
When he left school at 17, Smith travelled to England where he played league cricket in Kent before being offered a contract by Surrey.
He has always insisted that his loyalties were to the country of his birth.
But Tony Ward, who Smith stayed with while playing in Sevenoaks, Kent, said: “He was really in two minds as to whether he should become English or not.”
There were growing calls last night for Smith to be stripped of the captaincy and thrown out of the team.
He also has a £1.3million contract with Indian Premier League side Rajasthan Royals, which he captains.
Yesterday the club said it had a “zero tolerance policy” against actions that bring the game into disrepute and is considering his future in the wake of the scandal.
The star – who got engaged to long-term lawyer girlfriend Dani Willis last June – could lose millions more in lucrative sponsorship and endorsement deals. The crisis erupted after Australia’s opening batsman Cameron Bancroft, 25, was caught red-handed in the match which Australia went on to lose yesterday before being booed off the pitch.
Smith – who was also fined his match fee – said the team’s “leadership group” had come up with the plan to tamper with the ball to “get an advantage”.
He said: ‘It was a poor choice and we deeply regret our actions. The coaches weren’t involved. Being the leader, I am incredibly sorry.”