Tampering scandal fallout continues

The fallout from Australia's ball tampering scandal continued on Monday, with a host of names associated with the game weighing in with some forthright opinions

Fanie de Villiers, former South African cricketer / SuperSport commentator

"I said earlier on, if they can get reverse swing in the 26th, 27th, 28th over then they are doing something different from what everybody else (does)," de Villiers told RSN.

"We actually said to our cameramen 'go out, have a look boys, they are using something, if it's possible for the ball to get altered like that on a cricket wicket where we knew there was a grass covering – not a Pakistani wicket where there's cracks every centimetre.

"We're talking about grass-covered wickets where you have to do something else to alter the roughness of the ball on one side.

"With the Australian team getting reverse swing before the 30th over, they had to do something."

Jeff Thomson, former Australian cricketer

"I know there's been some sort of tampering going on. In our day, you had the ball, you spat on it, sweat, shine it, that was it,” Thomson told Nine's A Current Affair. 

"They should not get a match penalty they should just get flicked. I don't care who they are, they should be just 'see ya later'.

"It's a slur on everyone who's ever played cricket.

"They're like spoilt brats. If it doesn't go their way, they spit the dummy, whine about it, carry on stupidly.

"How do they get off the plan when they come back, they're going to get an absolute pizzling. I even got my hair cut so nobody would recognise me as an ex-cricketer."

Jason Gillespie, former Australian cricketer

"Steve Smith's time as Australia's captain is surely up. It is impossible to envisage a scenario where he stays in the job. This is a train wreck," Gillespie wrote in The Guardian.

"When Smith fronted the media on Saturday to explain his role in the ball-tampering scandal, one that has taken an already distasteful encounter with South Africa to new depths, he did not appear to grasp the severity of what he was owning up to. That simply beggared belief.

"This was pre-planned cheating. It may have been implemented by a junior player in Cameron Bancroft but it came with the backing and knowledge of "the leadership group", a core of senior guys in the Australian set-up. The reputation of a team who were already drawing scorn for their behaviour has been torched."

Stuart Broad, England cricketer

"I saw Steve Smith in his press conference say it's the first time they've tried it – which to me, it's surprising why they'd change a method that's been working," Broad said.

"Look at the Ashes series we've just played, all those Test matches, and they've reverse-swung the ball sometimes in conditions you wouldn't expect it to. I don't understand why they've changed their method for this one game.

"There was no evidence that they were doing this in the Ashes series, from what I've seen."

Tim Paine, acting Australia captain

"It's been a horrible 24 hours to be perfectly honest," Paine said on SuperSport.

"I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to all the people back home and the Australian fans who have come out here to support us, they did not deserve this from us."

Faf du Plessis, South Africa captain

"I can understand it's a really tough time for him to be in right now," du Plessis said after the Proteas smashed Australia by 322 runs in the third Test.

"Obviously the situation I was in was really difficult for me as well. Because people were attacking me, my personality and my character.

"And I felt it was wrong. It wasn't fair. I don't know how he feels about his own situation.

"Ball shining versus ball tampering, they're two very different situations. One is definitely much more serious than the other."

Chris Lynn, Australian cricketer

"I reckon every cricketer has probably done it throughout their career in grade cricket or whatever level to an extent. I think Faf du Plessis said when he got done last year, his was more of a ball shining not tampering. There's a fine line between all that stuff," said Lynn.

"The cricket has been interesting of late. It's keeping Test cricket on the map, isn't it? It's been interesting. Not exactly positive, but what's happened has happened and the guys are going to do what they're going to do.

"As a part of the Australian cricket team, I can't really say too much. The ICC have sanctioned the boys already and obviously Cricket Australia will have their say. But they haven't murdered anyone. They'll deal with it and move on.

"Hopefully we can win this last Test because at the end of the day, they're there to play cricket. Besides the spotlight being on other things, they're there to win a Test series which is the most important thing."

Moises Henriques Australian cricketer

NSW allrounder Moises Henriques took to Twitter to share his views, claiming Smith may have "made up" the line about a leadership group meeting in a bid to deflect attention from the most junior member of his playing XI.

"In my uneducated opinion, I dare say there was never a senior players' meeting to discuss cheating – Smith made that up to take the heat off a young Cameron Bancroft not realising the outrage that would follow," Henriques tweeted.

He later added: "PS, Not saying no one was aware of Cameron doing it, just highly doubt there was a ‘senior players' meeting’ to decide to cheat.

"I think it was the captain attempting to protect a young player. They had 10 mins of panic between (the) end of play and (the) press conference."

Henriques, who was part of the Australia Test squad during the so-called 'Homework' fiasco on the 2013 tour of India, was at pains to stress on Twitter it was just his opinion.

He would have close ties to fellow NSW players in the Australian team, including bowlers Mitch Starc and Josh Hazlewood who have been reported to be upset at being implicated by the term 'leadership group' Smith used in his press conference.

Ian Botham, former England captain

"How deep does it go? The players are saying that the management weren’t involved, which I hope is true," Botham told Sky Sports News.

"I don’t think this decision was made by Smith and Warner, so who else was involved?

"The groundswell over here is quite amazing, it is almost bordering on hatred at times. The players, it will be very tough for them and I think it puts everything about Australian cricket under question.

"People are now talking over here, how long has it been going on for? When else has this been done? There is going to be a lot of questions to be answered."

Nasser Hussain, former England captain

"The problem with ball tampering is, once you get done like this and found out, it's a little bit like match-fixing in that you start to question every other game. People start to question the Ashes," Hussain told Sky Sports.

"It's why the ICC should clamp down harder on it.

"This is a very good Australian bowling line-up, and has been for a while. But people will start questioning whether they're a good cricketing side because they scratch the ball better than opposition sides. Or are they just better?

"I thought Smith underplayed it when he went into that press conference straight after it happened. 'We will learn from this and we will move on', he said.

"Well, I'm afraid it's not that simple, you're the captain of Australia, a very proud cricketing nation, and to say you blatantly cheated, it's very difficult for you to stay in your job as captain."

Greg Matthews, former Australian cricketer

"Australian cricket is in the doldrums now, one of our lowest moments ever," Matthews said on Nine's A Current Affair.

“(Steve) Smith loves the game, trains more than anyone else, thinks about it more than anyone else, he’s not sleeping well at night thinking about cricket, he’s not going to be sleeping too well for a while now. 

“Clearly the greatest punishment Smith will face is that for the rest of his life, this will haunt him. (But) if everyone involved tells the truth no matter what the cost, this wound will heal."

Michael Clarke, former Australian captain

"I couldn't think of anything worse than Steve Smith coming back to Australia and being too scared and too embarrassed to be able to leave his house or to have paparazzi and media at the front of his door 24/7," Clarke told Channel Nine.

"I can tell you now there's no worse feeling when you're driving to a service station or a Woolworths and you're too embarrassed to get out of the car because you feel like everyone's staring at you and everybody is looking at you.

"That's my fear for Smithy at the moment. I feel for him and I don't want to see that happen."

John Buchanan, former Australian coach

"I think there are other things potentially happening in there, but maybe this particular issue could be one of those things that could be very helpful to the Australian team, the Australian team culture, and possibly down through the High Performance area," Buchanan told SEN Breakfast.

"I find it hard to believe that this sort of thing is almost something that has just happened completely out of the blue.

"I think there's always a whole lot of reasons why you get to a point either good or bad that things happen.

"In a dressing room, and the Cape Town dressing room isn't one of your biggest dressing rooms, it does have areas where you can escape, but nonetheless it just seems very difficult to me, how players, coaching staff didn't know what was going on."

Allan Border, former Australian captain

"How do they bounce back?" Border wrote on Fox Sports' website.

"It's going to be so tough given the circumstances — not knowing who will make up the Australian team, likely under the interim captaincy of Tim Paine.

"It's one thing to lose a Test match, but to have everything else thrown into it makes it difficult. The mood in the side would be terrible. How you lift that is the million-dollar question.

"The support staff have a role to play and then obviously the rest of the guys really have to rally around. They have a cricket match to play. They've done the wrong thing and have to cop the punishment, but now's the time to go out and show some good old-fashioned Aussie spirit."

Qantas tour of South Africa

South Africa squad: Faf du Plessis (c), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Theunis de Bruyn, Dean Elgar, Heinrich Klaasen, Quinton de Kock, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Duanne Olivier, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada, AB de Villiers.

Australia squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Cameron Bancroft, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Jon Holland, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Tim Paine, Jhye Richardson, Chadd Sayers, Mitchell Starc.

Warm-up match: Australia beat South Africa A by five wickets. Report, highlights

First Test Australia won by 118 runs. Scorecard

Second Test South Africa won by six wickets. Scorecard

Third Test Newlands, Cape Town, March 22-26. Live coverage

Fourth Test Wanderers, Johannesburg, March 30-April 3. Live coverage