Cricket Australia has recently released its docuseries called ‘The Test: A new era for Australia’s team.’ In this documentary, fans can see behind-the-scenes footage and understand how one of the world’s best cricket teams fell from grace and was forced to reclaim their title and integrity.
During the series, an episode features Ashes 2019 in which the England crowd greeted Steve Smith, David Warner, and Cameron Bancroft, the trio which was involved in the infamous ball-tampering scandal, with boos and abuses.
The constant boos and abuse did not go down well with the Australian coach Justin Langer and the mentor for the Ashes series, Ricky Ponting. It has been shown in the episode that due to the English fans’ endless booing, the former Australian skipper felt like jumping into the crowd and shutting them up.
“At different times, probably both of us (he and Langer) had to hold each other back from not jumping over the fence and getting amongst the crowd and shutting a few of them, to be honest,” Ponting said.
Langer was also angry with the behavior of England cricket fans and went on to say that the people in the crowd who were booing the duo (Warner and Smith) for their mistakes had also made mistakes in their life. He also termed the crowd’s behavior as ignorant.
“I hated it. I think it is ignorant. I think it’s disrespectful. It made me really angry to start off. Everyone booing Smith and Warner out there has done mistakes in their lives, he said. What the crowd is doing is a reflection of them and not Warner and Smith’s,” said Langer.
Despite the uncomfortable response by the crowd, Smith played like a champion, and in four games, he scored 774 runs at an unbelievable average of 110.57.
