Australia's Cameron Bancroft was one of the three players (the other two being David Warner and then-captain Steve Smith) who were handed bans for the infamous ball-tampering scandal during the side's tour of South Africa in early 2018.
Bancroft, who was only playing his eighth Test for Australia, was caught on television cameras applying sandpaper to the ball to assist swing during flight. He was eventually banned for nine months by Cricket Australia, while coach Darren Lehmann stepped down from the post following the scandal.
After over three years, Bancroft, now 28, opened up on the infamous scandal in an interview with The Guardian, Bancroft, now 28, saying it is "self-explanatory" when asked if Australian bowlers were aware of the plan.
“Uh … yeah, look, I think, yeah, I think it’s pretty probably self-explanatory," Bancroft said when asked if the Aussie bowlers knew about using sandpaper on the ball.
Bancroft said that the whole incident was a "hard lesson" for him.
“I invested too much to the point where I lost control of my values. What had become important to me was being liked, being well valued, feeling really important to my teammates, like I was contributing something by using sandpaper on a cricket ball. That’s something I don’t think I even understood until that mistake happened. But it’s part of the journey and a hard lesson I needed to learn,” said the Australian batsman.
“Yeah, look, all I wanted to do was to be responsible and accountable for my own actions and part. Yeah, obviously what I did benefits bowlers and the awareness around that, probably, is self-explanatory. I guess one thing I learnt through the journey and being responsible is that’s where the buck stops [with Bancroft himself]. Had I had better awareness I would have made a much better decision.”
Bancroft returned to the Australian team during the 2019 Ashes series but failed to make a mark, scoring only 44 runs across four innings. He is yet to make an appearance for the national team since then.
Steve Smith and David Warner, meanwhile, have re-established themselves as first-choice players across all three international formats since returning from their respective bans.
