Next few Months would be Tough for the Disgraced Trio - Mark Taylor

The former Australia skipper, Mark Taylor is of the opinion that the next few months will be extremely difficult for the suspended Australian trio of Steven Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.

Due to their respective suspensions, the trio will be forced to see Australia playing Test matches at home on the television sets.

Taylor is a part of the Australian Cricket Board. Despite calling the punishment as extremely fair, he did say it was also harsh. Ball-tampering issues are nothing new to cricket. Hence, the decision by Cricket Australia didn’t go down well with all and sundry.

Smith and Warner are currently playing in GLT20 Canada

Both Smith and Warner are part of the Global T20 Canada currently. As of now, Bancroft is playing in the Northern Territory Strike League. The trio had spoken about their situation in the past as well.

They are bound to encounter several emotional issues while seeing their team in action. Steven Smith had said he was up and down with his emotions while witnessing England thrash Australia 5-0 in the ODI series.

“The next nine months are going to be extremely tough for him, for David Warner and for Cameron Bancroft, because they’re going to have to watch more of the Australian side right through the summer, here in Australia,” Taylor was quoted as saying by Channel Nine.

“That will really hurt. It hurt Steve Smith watching them play in England and lose, when they [the team] are playing in Australia it’s going to be really tough for them [the banned trio] when they’re not playing.

“But in the long run, I think it’s good for all three of them. He made a bad mistake, as did the other two guys, three or four months ago, and he’s paying a very high price for it. I think the penalty they’ve received is very harsh but very fair, and I think we’ve now set a tone for world cricket that we’re not going to allow this sort of cheating to go on,” he said.

Taylor further stated attempts were made to draw a line in their aggression regard especially after the Durban Test against South Africa earlier in the year.

Taylor has his say on the episode 

“Sometimes you’ve almost got to hit rock bottom to get better,” Taylor said. “After the Ashes in Australia where they won 4-0, they won the T20 competition in New Zealand; I think everyone thought they were going wonderfully well. There were obviously things going on in the back of the brain which wasn’t great for Steve, Dave and for Cam, particularly for Steve and David our captain and vice-captain. Unfortunately, it led to them tampering with the ball and Steve not doing enough about the tampering with the ball.

“They were talked to about it – Pat Howard went from Australia to South Africa to talk to the team about that sort of behaviour, we need to tone things down. But it still doesn’t stop that one moment where two guys in the changeroom say we’re going to do something about changing the condition of the ball. It’s obviously become a huge story, but it comes down to one moment.

“The other thing they could have done, Darren Lehmann, Pat Howard and the selectors could have said ‘we’ll just leave those three guys out of that next Test match, just drop them, leave them out because we think they’re mentally not right’. How would that have gone down? You’d be sitting here saying ‘what are they doing, that’s our captain, vice-captain and opening batsman’.”

Smith was overburdened 

The former Aussie skipper further agreed to the fact Smith must have been overburdened being the skipper of the team and also the main batter. Smith further stated he might have needed a break after the Ashes series.

“I think we’ve had trouble with that in recent times; we saw that with Ricky Ponting towards the end of his playing days when the captain is that good a player. I was lucky, I wasn’t that good, but they feel at times, Steve was definitely the case, Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting, all a bit the same, feel they have to make the bulk of the runs as well.

“They’ve obviously got to keep a spot in the side, but really you’re just one of 11 batsmen in the side. I think that position of Australian captain is so closely scrutinised if you also think you have to be the best player and the best leader it’s a big load to carry,” he concluded.