SYDNEY: Repercussions of the 2018 Australian ball-tampering scandal incident in a Cape Town Test against host South Africa is going to keep recurring forever, David Saker, who was Australia's bowling coach at the time, has said while admitting that it was a "monumental mistake".
The incident returned to the headlines a few days ago after Cameron Bancroft, who was at the centre of the scandal, indicating that the bowlers of the team knew about the ball being tampered with.
"Obviously a lot of things went wrong at that time. The finger-pointing is going to go on and on and on," Saker told The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday.
"There was (sic) a lot of people to blame. It could have been me to blame, it could have been someone else. It could have been stopped and it wasn't, which is unfortunate. Cameron's a very nice guy. He's just doing it to get something off his chest... He's not going to be the last," he said.
Saker admitted it was a "monumental mistake".
"You could point your finger at me, you could point your finger at Boof [then coach Darren Lehmann], could you point it at other people, of course you could. The disappointing thing is it's never going to go away. Regardless of what's said. We all know that we made a monumental mistake. The gravity wasn't as plain until it all came out," he said.
The incident happened during a heated four-match Test series between South Africa and Australia in which Bancroft was caught by television cameras using an object on the ball before putting it in his pants during the third day of the third Test in Cape Town.
Bancroft later admitted to tampering with the ball in a press conference he addressed along with captain Steve Smith.
Smith, along with vice-captain David Warner, was subsequently removed from their positions and handed one-year bans. Smith and Warner have since returned to cricket. IANS