“If you go back to Steve Smith, you’re going backwards” says Ian Chappell

Ian Chappell

Ian Chappell made his opinion known that choosing Steve Smith to lead Australia again is not the right thing to do, which he shared as an advice to the management in an interview with the Wide World of Sports.

The Australian Management is currently looking at options for candidates who can lead the Australian side in white ball format with the upcoming ODI and T20I series against West Indies in the month of July, 2021. With Aaron Finch captaining for white ball formats and Tim Paine leading the team in Test format currently the management is looking for potential future candidates to lead the Australian side.

Meanwhile there are talks in the Australian cricket fraternity to back Smith to return back to captaincy of the Australian side, Ian Chappell discourages the management to go in furtherance of making such choices as he says it’s “time for them to look ahead”.

“I think it’s time to move on. To me, if you go back to Smith, you’re going backwards. It’s time to look ahead, not in the rear-vision mirror,” he explained as quoted by India Today.

Previously un 2018, the Australian cricket witnessed one of the darkest moments in the history of cricket as the former captain and vice captain, Steve Smith and David Warner were found guilty along with the Australian opener, Cameron Bancroft for involving in ball tampering during the Cape Town test against South Africa. Consequentially, Smith and Warner were sacked from their Captain and vice captain roles respectively and handed a one year ban.

Bancroft in a recent interview with The Guardian, opened up that the bowlers were also potentially aware of the fact of ball being tampered with during the Sandpaper gate incident in 2018, which had flooded the internet and the Australian Cricket Board is looking into re-investigation of that incident.

Ian Chappell on Cameron Bancroft’s comments and Pat Cummins

When Ian Chappell was questioned regarding the statement made by Bancroft he commented that, “It’s probably something that’s been on Bancroft’s chest for a while, and he’s tried to get it off his chest as diplomatically as he possibly could. I’m not surprised, because Bancroft’s one of only three that got pinged for what happened, and most people would realise that there were more than three people involved,” he said.

He further explained that there is no need for surprise for players other than those three who were sacked also had the knowledge that the ball was being tampered with. But currently Pat Cummins, the vice captain of Australian side in all three formats has been considered to be the favourite in leading the team in future games has been facing criticisms to lead the side as the statement of Bancroft has created an apprehension of him being aware during the Sandpaper gate incident.

“If people start jumping up and down about Pat Cummins captaining Australia if he knew, well the answer is pretty clear because it falls back on Smith. He’s the bloke who should have stopped it. The captain’s got the overall say and power to stop it, and he didn’t. I don’t think it should count against Pat Cummins, even if they decide the bowlers did know. Smith is the bloke who should have made sure the whole thing never started,” Chappell signed off.

But the 77 year old Australian veteran has said that it is extraneous for Cummins to be criticized even in case the Australian pace bowler has been aware of ball tampering. Since, it was the call of the former Australian skipper Steve Smith to have avoided such instances in the first case as he had all the powers to do so. So the whole liability of the Sandpaper gate incident falls on the shoulders of Steve Smith.

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