On Friday, Cricket Australia (CA) announced speedster Pat Cummins and senior batter Steve Sm𝔉ith 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 text♍ing scandal.
On this announcement, Australian spin wizard Shane Warne shared his displeasure on the appointment of Steve as vice-captain of ꩲthe 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 lea🎐dership 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 shꦰould 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.
