England’s Shorter formats captain Eoin Morgan believes cricket’s reputation has been “battered” by the recent ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town but hopes the sanctions imposed on the Australian trio could help the game move on from the episode. Cricket Australia handed 12-month bans to former captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner, while Bancroft was suspended for nine months after he was caught using a piece of sandpaper on the ball in the third test against South Africa.
“In the last two weeks cricket has been battered and not for the right reasons,” he told.
“I’d like to think that the balance changed when the sanctions were imposed, because they were serious sanctions. You can see it and say it’s wrong but to then back it up with such a sanction says a huge amount.”
“Throwing the ball in, one bounce, is fine… but if you throw to the keeper from long-on or long-off, the umpires will monitor how often the ball hits the playing surface and tell you they’ll change the ball if you do it again,” he added.
“So, yes, there are grey areas but I think Cricket Australia have gone a long way to saying none of it is acceptable.”
