Cheating is cheating – Ian Chappell lashes out on Cricket Australia for appointing Smith as vice-captain
The former Australian cricketer Ian Chappell said that Cricket Australia should have made a clear statement after Time Paine stood down from captaincy.
The former Australian legend Ian Chappell slams Cricket Australia for making Steve Smith as vice-captain of the Australian Test cricket team.
Chappell says that Australia should have made a clear statement after Tim Paine stood down from the captaincy following a scandal.
The 78-year-old legend was not satisfied with Cricket Australia’s decision to appoint Smith as vice-captain of the Test side.
Steve Smith, the former Australian captain was banned from all formats of cricket for the span of 12 years followed by his involvement in Sandpapergate in Cape Town, South Africa in 2018, which saw a couple of major changes in the Australian cricket team.
The incident faced a similar scenario that forced the recent Australian Test captain Tim Paine to take an indefinite break from all forms of cricket.
Australia named Pat Cummins as their new Test captain barely a couple of weeks before the Ashes. Meanwhile, Steve Smith made a comeback in the leadership as vice-captain for Australia.
Chappell said that Cricket Australia should make a clear statement on the incidents that happened in the past and what they faced recently. Going back to Smith as vice-captain was not the right decision to make.
“I wish that Cricket Australia had made a clean break, but for Cricket Australia to get anything right at the moment is asking a bit much,”
Chappell said on a Sports radio on Saturday.
Chappell also said that different treatment to David Warner and Steve Smith on the same offense does not make any sense. Warner, Smith was banned for the span of 12 months while Cameron Bancroft was given a nine-month ban.
But the left-handed opening batter was banned from captaincy for life, which was not the case with Smith, who was only banned from leading Australia for two years.
“For starters, I have a problem — why is Steve Smith looked upon as a different punishment to David Warner? In fact, if anything, I think Steve Smith’s crime was greater. For a captain to say, ‘I don’t want to know’ when cheating is involved, is not correct. A captain’s got to know, he’s got to find out and he’s got to do something about it. Either Steve Smith has a two-year ban from captaincy and so does David Warner, or Steve Smith has a life ban and so does Dave Warner. Same thing,”
said Chappell.
Using the word “Cheating” again and again, Chappell said that Smith and Warner can continue as players for the team but bringing any of them back in the leadership members is not the right example.
“Cheating is cheating, whether it’s big cheating or little cheating; it’s still cheating in my book. If I’d have cheated as an Australian captain — I mean I made a lot of mistakes but I didn’t cheat. And if I had cheated, and if I had done what Tim Paine did, I would have expected Cricket Australia to not ask me to resign, they would have taken the job away from me and made sure I didn’t continue to play as a player,”
Chappell signed off.