People Love Rehashing An Old Scandal - David Gower Says There Will Be Problems If Steve Smith Is Re-appointed As Australia's Captain

Former England captain David Gower reckons re-appointing, or even thinking of making, Steve Smith as Australia’s Test captain again wouldn’t bode well with Cricket Australia as the talks of the Cape Town ball-tampering incident would take fire again in public.

Tim Paine, who was made the skipper following Steve Smith’s ban, is expected to hang his boots after the home Ashes 2021/22.

David Gower says that while Steve Smith has proven his strong mental character while returning from the ban and making huge runs in the previous Ashes, it won’t be a correct call to put him at the helm again.

“Then you’ve got some decisions to make, but I think if Steve is offered the captaincy again, or if they consider that, there will be problems because people will instantly latch on to what we’ve been talking about. He’s proven himself a strong character since then,” David Gower told Fox Cricket’s Road to the Ashes Podcast

“People love rehashing an old scandal. There was a lot of righteous indignation at the time, there was a severe punishment meted out to the people deemed to be guilty; year-long bans, that’s a long time,” he added.

It’s a better thing for him to carry on with the game, not go back to that previous life: David Gower

David Gower, who represented the Three Lions in 117 Tests, reckons Australia has other options for captaincy post Paine – Pat Cummins is the current vice-captain and has also been leading in domestic matches.

The left-hander asserts that Smith would be better off focussing on run-scoring rather than getting into the captaincy muddle again, as it would take him to the old worse times of his.

“It’s all a question about what the alternatives are because if you have someone who is ready and waiting to take on the role fresh, then I think that’s probably a better idea and you let somebody like Steve keep his senior role, obviously with the Ashes at stake he’ll be trying to make the same amount of runs he made last time, and it’s potentially a better thing for him to carry on with the game, not go back to that previous life which will inevitably mean things are raked over again,” the 64-year old former skipper maintained.

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