Cricket Australia to reopen investigation into sandpaper incident at 2018 Cape Town Test

Cricket Australia will reopen the investigation into the events of the 2018 Cape Town Test, it was announced on Saturday. This comes after comments from Cameron Bancroft, one of three players privy to the plot. Bancroft insinuated that more members of the team were aware of similar wrong-doings.

“CA has maintained all along that if anyone is in possession of new information in regards to the Cape Town Test of 2018, they should come forward and present it. The investigation conducted at the time was detailed and comprehensive. Since then, no one has presented new information to CA that casts doubt on the investigation’s findings,” a spokesman for CA said on Saturday.

What did Bancroft say?

Bancroft, who is currently playing county cricket for Durham, said he wanted to take responsibility for his own actions.

“Yeah, look, all I wanted to do was to be responsible and accountable for my own actions and part. Yeah, obviously what I did benefits bowlers and the awareness around that, probably, is self-explanatory,” Bancroft told The Guardian.

“I guess one thing I learnt through the journey and being responsible is that’s where the buck stops. Had I had better awareness I would have made a much better decision.”

However, Bancroft implied it wasn’t just him, Steve Smith and David Warner aware of the plot “Uh… yeah, look, I think, yeah, I think it’s pretty probably self-explanatory,” he said when asked if others were aware.

Will Cricket Australia find anything now?

It seems unlikely, but one cannot rule anything out. For his part, Bancroft names no names – only saying that others in the team knew of the plan.

That being said, this means that members of the current set-up were in fact in the know. This is a problem because CA took many steps to show they learnt from the error.

Justin Langer’s appointment as coach was meant to bring about a “culture change”. To some extent, they have succeeded in doing so.

Yet CA will be vigilant to ensure there is no such issue that comes up in the future. That would mean weeding out issues as soon as they crop up.