On Friday, Cricket Australia (CA) announced speedster Pat Cummins and senior batter Steve Smith as captain and vice-captain of the Australian side for the upcoming five-match Ashes series, starting on December 8, at the Gabba in Brisbane. Cummins replaced Tim Paine, who recently stepped down from Test captaincy following his texting scandal.
On this announcement, Australian spin wizard Shane Warne shared his displeasure on the appointment of Steve as vice-captain of the Test team.
Steve, the former Australian captain, was caught in the ball-tampering case in the third Test match against South Africa in 2018. He, along with his deputy David Warner and team-mate Cameron Bancroft were banned for different periods of time.
Since the trio was equally involved in the ball-tampering case, Steve was only banned for two years from the leadership role, while Warner was kept away from leadership for a lifetime.
The 52-year-old expressed his views stating if Steve could return to the leadership position, then Warner and Bancroft should also get one more chance.
“We all love Steve Smith and are proud that he’s the best Test batsmen in the world again, but he should not be the Australian vice-captain.” Warne wrote in his column for the Herald Sun on Saturday.
“Everyone makes mistakes, we know that, and we’ve all moved on from sandpaper-gate. But that happened under Steve Smith’s captaincy; he allowed that to happen on his watch. I think the punishment he was given was way too severe, which I said at the time. He paid a huge price for his mistake.”
“But his second chance is getting to play for Australia again and in my opinion announcing him as vice-captain opens up CA (Cricket Australia) for ridicule and criticism, and they should throw the code of conduct out the window,” added Warne.
