Smith exiled but coach is spared axe

AUStRAlIA are the laughingstock of world cricket after coach Darren lehmann was spared the axe following claims he knew nothing about his team’s plans to tamper with the ball. Captain Steve Smith, vicecaptain David Warner and opening batsman Cameron Bancroft will today fly home from South Africa — and learn the extent of the punishments meted out to them by the Australian board, with yearlong bans likely. But Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland insisted lehmann had been unaware of his players’ cheating during last week’s third test in Cape town. Former England captain Michael Vaughan led the disbelief, tweeting: ‘Only 3 people knew. #MyA***.’

Liam Livingstone and Jack Leach are in contention to make their test debuts for england’s last match of a long winter and try to cure their acute travel sickness. another crushing defeat in auckland has left england without a win in 12 away tests and they know they must take action ahead of what has become a must-win final game of this mini-series against new Zealand. that means all those who missed out at eden Park with the exception of reserve keeper Ben Foakes — Livingstone, Leach, mark Wood and James vince — will be considered by captain Joe Root and coach trevor Bayliss. ‘We’ve given a lot of guys opportunities that they haven’t grabbed and at some stage we have to look at who is next,’ said Bayliss before the test which starts late on thursday night UK time. ‘that will be discussed over the next couple of days.’ two of england’s leading players in moeen ali and Chris Woakes will come under scrutiny while Craig overton is another who could face the axe as england continue to search for wickets overseas. moeen in particular has had a dreadful winter with bat and ball and, after taking just five wickets in the last six tests, may be replaced either by the left-arm spin of Leach or the part-time leg and off-spinner in Livingstone. ‘i’m sure he’s disappointed with the way he’s gone,’ Bayliss said of moeen. ‘He had a fantastic summer but this winter hasn’t gone how he would have liked.’ much will depend on whether Ben stokes is fit to bowl and the impact on the balance of the side that comes from him playing as a specialist batsman. stokes again felt pain in his back towards the end of the auckland test. ‘Ben says the soreness wasn’t the same as what stopped him bowling but it was from not having batted for a long time,’ said Bayliss. ‘He was stooped over his bat for four or five hours and he hasn’t done that for a while. He doesn’t seem concerned about it and there’s nothing nasty in his back, that’s for sure. But we don’t know at this stage whether he will be able to bowl in Christchurch. ‘He’s been bowling half to threequarter pace in practice so we will just have to wait and see.’