Inside ‘bloody awful’ Smith scene Aussies will never forget... and ‘bitter’ taste that remains

It is more than eight years since a devastated dad sat with his shattered son at Sydney Airport, consoling a man who felt he had lost almost everything of importance to him after a moment of madness in South Africa.

Peter Smith had been there when his talented son Steve made his first ever century in under-10 cricket at Casuarina Oval, about a 20-minute drive from the soulless room they were now sitting in, and was by his side now in the most testing moment of his life.

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In the two decades since that knock not far from the family home in Alfords Point the little boy with blond locks had matured into the finest Australian batsman since Don Bradman, an astonishing accolade given the greats who had carried that label in previous generations.

His brilliance had brought him fame - not necessarily something he was overly comfortable with - and fortune and catapulted him to a role considered the second most important in the land as captain of the Australian cricket team.

But now it was over, dashed by a moment of madness a week earlier in Cape Town when young Western Australian opener Cameron Bancroft was captured on film putting sandpaper down his strides. And the days since had been an exhausting, never-ending nightmare.

Smith was sacked as Australian captain and banned for a year.

He had been pursued by a frenzied pack of photographers through Johannesburg airport as though he was on Australia’s Most Wanted list.

SANDPAPERGATE SERIES

PART ONE: ‘What did you f***ing say?’ How guns, scandal and toxic ultimatum lit Sandpapergate fuse

PART TWO: A hidden act had saved Australia from its deepest shame... then came sickening snub

To be fair, there were some who probably thought he should have been given the shame Sandpapergate had brought on Australian cricket.

Now Smith had to face the music again, to outline his despair at what had unfolded in South Africa, mindful that there were no certainties he would ever play cricket for Australia again. How had it all come to this?

A father shepherds his son

Standing alongside him was his dad, stoic yet shattered for his son and that, according to renowned Australian cricket journalist Malcolm Conn, was perhaps the only blessing from what was another awful day for Aussie cricket.

Conn, who had either broken or covered most of Australian cricket’s biggest stories over three decades, had jumped to the other side and was serving a joint role as a senior communications officer for Cricket New South Wales and Cricket Australia in Sydney.

His task that day was to co-ordinate the arrangements around Smith’s mea culpa.

But it was far from a simple task given the emotion at hand and it got even crazier when David Warner and his family, who had caught a separate flight, landed and were chased through the airport.

But back to Smith and his dad, who when his son broke down in tears while speaking placed a reassuring hand upon his shoulder.

Thank God the old boy was there, Conn recently told foxsports.com.au.

“Steve went into the back room and his dad Peter, who we saw in the press conference was the world’s loveliest bloke, was there, and Steve goes and does the press conference and breaks down,” Conn said.

“I’m glad his father was next to him, because it was gut wrenching watching this kid who … from the age of 15, all he had lived for was to play cricket for Australia and it looked like the whole thing had been taken away from him.

“He was just completely gutted for the fact that he had lost everything, for what he had done to Australian cricket, for what he had done to his family. It felt bloody awful being there.”

Bancroft had already spoken at the WACA in Perth, clearly emotional as he expressed his deep regret while conceding he had lied initially about not having sandpaper in Cape Town.

Warner had already cut himself off from teammates by removing himself from a WhatsApp group chat and initially used social media to apologise, conceding it was a stain on the game, before fronting the press at the SCG a few days later.

But Smith was the Australian captain.

From the moment he saw the footage of Bancroft on the big screen at Newlands, he knew trouble was afoot, though initially he didn’t realise just how much of an impact the scandal would create in Australia and around the world.

“To all of my teammates, to fans of cricket all over the world and to all Australians who are disappointed and angry, I’m sorry.I made a serious error of judgement and I now understand the consequences,” he said.

“It was a failure of leadership (under) my leadership. I’ll do everything I can to make up for my mistake and the damage it has caused. If any good can come from this, if it can be a lesson to others, then I hope I can be a force for change.”

Smith took a handful of questions, including a reprehensible effort from a fool representing a Sydney FM station trying to take the p*** of a situation that was clearly devastating, and broke down all over again.

“I know I will regret this for the rest of my life. I’m absolutely gutted. I hope in time I can earn back respect and forgiveness,” he said.

“To see the way my old man’s been and my mum, it hurts. I want to say I’m sorry and the pain I’ve brought to Australia and the fans and the public, it’s devastating and I’m truly sorry. I love the game of cricket.”

The public crucifixion complete, Smith headed back into the international terminal preparing for his escape to New York, where he sought anonymity among the millions living in the concrete jungle to grieve the situation.

The price of headbutting the line

A few days earlier it seemed inconceivable that the scandal would reach this point of absurdity as the Aussies made their way silently back to the team hotel in Cape Town following a hefty loss that saw them trailing 2-1 with one Test remaining.

At that stage, there was one certainty. Smith would miss the final Test in Johannesburg after receiving a one match ban from the ICC.

But the powerbrokers in Cricket Australia were smarting and intent on making a stand after years where the Aussies had “head butted the line”.

Cricket Australia’s high performance manager Pat Howard and integrity boss Iain Roy arrived in Cape Town the day after the Test ended. James Sutherland, the body’s chief executive, was not far behind them. And with even the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull baying for blood, heads were going to roll.

The Aussies were shell-shocked as they flew east across South Africa for the final Test.

If they had felt paranoid after arriving in Cape Town to learn that Kagiso Rabada had been cleared to play after a shoulder charge of Smith, the side now felt under siege.

Media organisations had arrived from the United Kingdom to join the Aussie and local press. The English were not going to let slip a chance to kick the Aussies when they were down.

The sordid saga had even made The New York Times - it was perhaps best Smith was avoiding the papers given he was about to embark to the Big Apple to recover.

But it was not only the waiting media that created the tension.

In the team hotel the Australian administration was summoning players to rooms to be interrogated on who knew what, when and where, which was scarcely the ideal preparation for the final Test of a series that was still alive.

It created further divisions in a team that was at breaking point.

Tim Paine, who had deputised for the final day of action in Cape Town, was entrusted with becoming Australia’s 46th Test captain, much to his shock.

He had debuted alongside Smith at Lords back in 2010 but due to injuries and the adeptness of Brad Haddin had played only eight Tests.

But now he was thrust into a role of extraordinary responsibility at a time of Australian cricket’s greatest crisis, at a stage where he felt awful for what his teammates were experiencing.

“Davey had his family there the whole time, but Steve and Cam were alone. Things were tense and horrible,” Paine recalled in his autobiography The Price Paid.

“I think Davey felt abandoned and that nobody was looking out for him. He’d copped so much heat for his behaviour on the field and then there was what he was going through with the crowd.

“For a while there he cut himself off from all of us and removed himself from the team WhatsApp group and I can understand that. The personal abuse was taking its toll before this, but things had gone from bad to worse.

“On reflection all three of them should have had more support. Maybe we could have done more as a group or an organisation. Not enough people put themselves in their shoes.”

Eventually the players were called into a room and Sutherland, the CEO, informed them of the bans, with an added sting for Warner - he got a lifetime ban from leadership.

Paine could not help but ponder if he was paying the price for being outspoken during the acrimonious pay dispute that unfolded during 2017.

After one last fitful night of sleep, the suspended trio packed their bags and headed for home as those left in South Africa pondered how they could possibly perform without them.

Experienced journalist Pete Lalor wrote in a piece for Cricket Et Al this week that there was an intense sadness about watching Bancroft shadow-batting in the foyer of the hotel as Smith dropped his bag to bid farewell to the bleary-eyed press pack covering the tour.

Having spent a lifetime covering and critiquing the Australian team, Conn could understand the sentiment expressed by those including the Prime Minister in the aftermath of Sandpapergate, even if he could not quite believe the harshness of the penalties issued.

“When something happens on the cricket field that is definitely not cricket, it is almost like it is an insult to the nation,” Conn said.

“It is like it is tarnishing all of us and that we are offended that someone representing our country as an ambassador could ever behave that way. That was the feeling that came pouring forth. Australians felt humiliated, offended, let down.

“One of the few things the country had, even before the Federation, was an Australian cricket team. It is part of the fabric of the nation. So to have such a complete breach of trust take place, to be cheating like that, people were mortified and understandably so.”

‘No Australian will ever tamper with the ball again’

The harshness of the penalties prompted a divide and also a rethink at the ICC, which promised to reconsider the way they sanctioned offences.

But the South Africans viewed the sanctions with some bemusement and with good reason, as legend Barry Richards told foxsports.com.au

“To be honest with you, having played the game, it didn’t surprise me that this sort of thing happened,” Richards said.

“It’s not like it had not been going on for years with creams, lip balms, Murray mints, sand in the pocket, those sorts of things. It had just been very hard to detect because in the beginning there were not enough cameras.

“But with sandpaper and fingernails happening, and cameras becoming more prevalent, it was inevitable that it would be picked up at some stage.

“But for all those people who were expressing outrage … that sort of thing had been happening for quite a few years. I mean, we had a captain (Faf du Plessis) that had been done twice for having a zipper on his trousers and rubbing the ball on it, which is essentially the same thing.

“There is no country that can turn around and say the Aussies are big cheats because they have all been at it. Every one of them.”

Former England captain Michael Vaughan loved nothing better than getting one over the Aussies and understood immediately that it would be massive news because it was Australia, which had been the “number one force in cricket”.

But he said the aftermath was over the top, with the penalties handed to Smith, Bancroft and Warner far too excessive.

“For the Aussies to be caught out in that way, I guess there were many around the world probably chuckling a little bit,” he said.

“But you look back on it now and the way it was managed and the way those lads were treated and while I thought it was right to come down on them heavily, because you can’t go away and do what they did, but the actual punishment was outrageous, really.”

The Australian Cricketers Association was also angered, calling into question the process and the penalties while arguing there were a “number of glaring and clear anomalies” in the way Smith, Warner and Bancroft were treated in comparison to cricketers from other countries.

But reflecting on the sanctions eight years after the fact, former Australian fast bowler and ex-selector Merv Hughes believes the harsh action had the necessary deterring impact.

“You’ve got to remember that other teams’ players have been caught doing similar stuff, if not worse, if not about the same, and they’ve just been happy with their fine or their one or two match suspensions,” Hughes said.

“But what Australian cricket did was say, ‘We’re not happy with that. We are holding our players to a higher standard and we don’t want our players to do this again.’ And they sent a message.

“Yes, the punishments were harsh, but they had to be to players in the future thinking about doing the same thing. Now, still, what happens when a player gets done for tampering, for ball-tampering, is that they’ll get a one-game suspension or they’ll get a fine … but I can guarantee you that no Australian player in the future is going to tamper with that ball.”

A joyless Test

Back in South Africa there was still a Test to play, though even the South Africans were questioning the merits of that as they watched with some astonishment just how harshly their bitter rivals had been sanctioned.

It sapped some of the joy from the series, opener Dean Elgar told Fox Cricket’s podcast The Follow On recently.

“They were not criminals in my mind. It was just extremely badly handled,” he said.

“They didn’t commit a crime. And obviously there was a backlash … and I felt it was just unnecessary and unneeded. And a guy like Steve Smith … I had played against him for many, many years, and I played under-19s against Dave Warner at the World Cup, and to see them go through what they were going through was very sad and I think it was extremely unnecessary and was quite bitter from the Australian handling point of view.

“And I will probably get a bit of flak for saying this … but just seeing how the whole thing was handled back in Australia was extremely sad because it actually took the whole sting out of the whole series. It’s almost like we shouldn’t have carried on playing that series.”

Given how the final Test ended up - South Africa dominated a hastily patched-together Australian team - there is no doubt the tourists would agree.

The players had been banished but the casualties did not end there.

Before a ball had been bowled Darren Lehmann decided to step down as coach, despite Cricket Australia clearing him of any knowledge of the ball tampering scheme.

“I went into the room and sat in the corner as he did the presser,” Paine wrote.

“He was a mess. Red-eyed from crying. He’d been adamant he was going to stay with us. He’d had a change of heart, apparently, but I couldn’t help but feel he’d been pushed.”

Matt Renshaw was flown across along with Joe Burns and Glenn Maxwell as potential replacements, while Chadd Sayers finally got a chance to play with Mitch Starc injured.

The Aussies not surprisingly played as though they were in a daze. There was little talk and not a great deal of energy as they were pummelled.

Sayers snared the prized wicket of AB de Villiers and Pat Cummins secured five wickets, but an Aiden Markram century put South Africa well on top, with the hosts making 488.

In response, the Aussies managed 221 with Paine, Cummins and Usman Khawaja making half-centuries before South Africa knocked up 6-344 declared in the second innings.

Set an impossible target of 612 to square the series, the Aussies wilted badly to be bowled out for 119, with only Burns and Peter Handscomb making more than 20.

It was the final Test of the grand career of South African paceman Morne Morkel and for all the enmity that occurred during the series, the Aussies joined their rivals afterwards for drinks in a convivial end to a torturous and toxic tour.

The fallout expands

During their absence, Smith and Warner featured in grade cricket in Sydney and drew good crowds to some games, while Bancroft worked away in Western Australia. All three returned to the Test team but Bancroft’s stint was short-lived, much to his chagrin.

Only Smith remains, but there is no certainty the champion will continue for much longer.

But he told Code Sports in September that he expects this series to be no different to any other and has looked in decent touch in the nets leading into the Durban series opener.

“Oh, for me, it’s just another series,” Smith said.

“All that happened a long time ago, and we’ve played a lot of cricket; we’ve been back to South Africa since then for one-dayers.

“They’re a good side at the moment, obviously beating us in the World Test Championship final. They have a really good pace attack as well, so they should be a cracker of a series.”

During their stint on the sidelines, there was immense change in the Cricket Australia administration as well as the fallout reached all corners of the organisation.

Sutherland’s 17-year tenure as chief executive finished later that year and he now heads up Golf Australia.

Chairman David Peever, who initiated a review into the series and what went wrong, found himself in the crosshairs as well and departed the organisation, as did several other staff members across various divisions.

It is notable that in the years since, the Aussies have barely ruffled the feathers when it comes to behaviour on the field and while they still play the sport hard, there is a friendlier tone, something Travis Head attributes to the growth of franchise cricket.

“Well, it has changed things. It is completely different to what it would have been in the 2000s and the 2010, forever probably, before franchise cricket,” he said.

“When you look back on those series that we watched, you can probably sense on the TV when you rewatch some of those 2000, 2010 series,etc, that it’s a real us against them mentality. (They took) no prisoners. You can sense that when we get celebrations and the send offs here and there, the sledging here and there, but now you don’t really see it because we play with each other as much as we do.

“I think in terms of sledging and all getting into each other, it’s very rare that you see it because so many guys play with each other or someone in the team has played with that person who can vouch for them, and yeah, take another role if someone’s got a different opinion. So yeah, (it’s) interesting.”

How will the Aussies be received?

Australian captain Pat Cummins said recently he is sure the Aussies will receive some flak from the crowd but noted they have been back on a couple of occasions for white ball cricket since the infamous tour.

“There might be a little bit of hostility,” he said.

“As long as I’ve been to South Africa, there are some parts of the crowd that get stuck in, but I reckon we’ve seen it all before. (Sandpapergate) was kind of really spoken about (in past white ball series) and it was almost a bit underwhelming. Everyone moves on.

“I’m sure there’ll be some rowdy people in the crowd and some articles or some media bring up stuff, but our group has moved on.”

AB de Villiers, who was the innocent victim in the incident that sparked all the antipathy in Durban when Nathan Lyon dropped the ball near his head after he had been run out for a duck, is sure that Smith will be singled out for abuse from some. But he believes he is also respected in South Africa.

“With Steve Smith coming back to SA, it will be interesting to see how he will be welcomed over here (with) everything that took place in 2018. Obviously it was quite an emotional series and it is not that after that this series is taking place now,” he said on the Keepin’ It Cricket podcast.

“I think ‘Smudge’ is highly respected in South Africa, even with what happened there in 2018. The way he dealt with it all - I mean, there was an unfortunate event that happened there in 2018 - but it was interesting to see how it unfolded a week or two after that and the way Steve dealt with it compared to some of the others.

“I’ve always had a lot of respect for him, and he obviously made a mistake there in that Test series, but I don’t think the reception he is going to receive will be too bad.”

Former Australian captain and ex-selector Greg Chappell has no doubt South African fans will raise hell in Durban and beyond, but doubts it will have an impact on the Australians.

“Sandpaper-gate? You blokes will talk about it and they will over there because they’ll want to bring it out and they’ll want to blow it up. The crowd will come with placards and comments and so on,” he said.

“But it’s like, you know, we’re still talking about the bloody Bodyline series, but it has had no impact on any other series since the Bodyline series. It’s part of the history and this is part of the history. The South Africans will be very happy to bring it to the front of mind just to embarrass the Australian players.

“But it’s just noise. I don’t think our blokes will worry about it. I think Pat and Ronnie (Andrew McDonald) will know how to deal with it. There will be moments and there will be comments that are made that’ll probably annoy the Australians. But I think they will focus on this series, not the last series.”