A file image of David Warner and Steve Smith.
The Ball tampering saga has taken a turn for the worse as the trio of Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were handed their significant sanctions by Cricket Australia which has sent shockwaves around the cricket world. Smith and Warner, who have been stripped off their captaincy roles have been banned for a year the 'pawn' Bancroft, was given nine-months.
The cricketer fraternity is in absolute shock but the particular way Smith was escorted from the airport was simply bizarre. The past and present players have mixed reactions to the scandal where plenty condemn their actions, a few feel that the 'punishment might not fit the crime'.
What astonishes more, was that Smith was flanked by security after a swarm of media surrounded the former skipper as he made through a jostling and hostile crowd at the Johannesburg airport.
The cricket fraternity took to social media to share their opinion on the ball-tampering row.
Michael Clarke
"Whatever punishment and sanctions they cop, that is going to be nothing compared to what they're going to deal with for the rest of their lives," Clarke told the Nine Network. "They're going to be called cheats for the rest of their lives."
Ian Chappell
"If they'd only given six months and they'd played in the Australian summer, the booing and crowd reaction would have been so bad and it would have been very hard for the players," wrote for ESPN.
Smith and Warner were banned for 12 months on Wednesday after an investigation into the Australian cricket team's cheating scandal identified the vice-captain as the instigator of the ball tampering plan that unravelled in South Africa.
Smith and Warner have been banned from playing for Australia, or any high-level cricket in Australia, for a year. Bancroft, maybe because he's an impressionable newcomer in the team, received a nine-month ban.
