Quote:
Originally Posted by tchaz
He is a baby. He made his test debut in November. Think back to the Kronje dressing room pressures. It would be his word against the captain's and the others in that senior committee "team leadership group" (probably including Warner) if he went public. What would happen is that he would be ostracized and then not selected again.
Sorry: tell them to **** off and keep quiet: not selected again: moderate record, but whispered to the press that he's not a team player is reason enough.
Tbh, exec is my main initial source for the story , so I'm not sure about the timing. But, also, if Bancroft was the one who initially dobbed Smith in - once he was caught - and Smith rides it out as he is trying to, I wouldn't give much for Bancroft's future.
Come on man, he's not a baby. He made his first class debut 4.5 years ago - that's tough hard cricket in Oz. He's also happy to play the media game when it suits him (eg with Headbutgate) and is a well known sledger. Trying to feel sorry for him, as if he's a young kid still wet behind the ears, doesn't fly with me.
Note that I'm not saying that wanting a younger player to do the dirty work doesn't make what Smith etc did (which I assume includes Warner also, as you say) worse - just that Bancroft should know the difference between right and wrong.
Re Kronje - many players said no and I'm not sure that they were dropped. Boucher was one I think (?), though he wasn't a marginal selection to be fair.
FWIW - the build up to the Eng NZ day was all about this on Sky. Atherton felt some sympathy for Bancroft it seemed (though it was mainly about the incident reflecting even more badly on Smith) whereas David LLoyd wouldn't have it (it terms of sympathy for Bancroft, not ragging on Smith). Then the affable Rob Key launched into a tirade against Smith, saying that he's fed up of him and the Oz team.
One thing they said was that, under the guidelines, the offence isn't that big in terms of de-merit points and bans (2 points for Bancroft, maybe more for Smith if they use the catch-all "bringing the game into disrepute" rules). They ICC may need to look at that. As it stands, unless the relevant cricket board take action this kind of thing could potentially not even lead to a single player missing a test match.