Mark Taylor Feels Reawakening of Ball-Tampering Scandal Dents Steve Smith’s Chances of Regaining Captaincy

Mark Taylor feels that Cricket Australia will not go away with it which makes the case worse for Smith at the moment to regain the captaincy.

Former Australia cricketer Mark Taylor feels that the reawakening of the infamous ball-tampering scandal dents Steve Smith’s chances of becoming the captain again. Steve Smith was removed from the captaincy after the sandpaper gate incident in 2018 and also received one year ban. Apart from him, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft also faced punishment from Cricket Australia.

Recently, Bancroft shed some light on the incident and claims that players other than the three accused knew about the incident in Capetown. In a conversation with a journalist, Bancroft revealed that Australian bowlers’ knowledge of the incident is “self-explanatory”.

Taylor feels that Cricket Australia will not go away with it which makes the case worse for Smith at the moment to regain the captaincy.

“It doesn’t help. No doubt about it, it doesn’t help his case, because he like I’m sure most people involved in the game would like this just to go away; which it won’t go away,” Mark Taylor, a staunch supporter of Steve Smith, said on Sports Sunday.

The former Aussie player feels that there is no doubt that the momentum was shifting in favour of Smith before the reawakening of the incident.

“There’s no doubt there’s a growing momentum around Steve Smith being a potential captain, no doubt about that.”

On Bancroft’s revelation, Taylor claims that he thinks that the Australian bowlers didn’t have any idea about the ball-tampering during that incident.

“The bleeding obvious to me is they didn’t know that it had been doctored. You only have to read what they said during the week. If I could just read it out: ‘We did not know a foreign substance was taken on to the field to alter the condition of the ball’. And as they said, the two umpires in the game did not change the ball. So there was an attempt to change the condition of the ball but they didn’t get to do it. The umpire said, ‘That ball’s still fine, let’s get on with it’. So they did not know,” Taylor said.