David Saker on ball-tampering scandal: 'Finger-pointing is going to go on and on and on'

David Saker, Australia's bowling coach at the time of the Newlands ball-tampering scandal, has likened the controversy to the underarm incident of 1981.

Former Australia assistant coach David Saker

David Saker, Australia's bowling coach at the time of the Newlands ball-tampering scandal, has said it was a "monumental mistake" that could have been prevented.

The review of Australia's win-at-all-cost team culture after the incident led to varying punishments for then captain Steve Smith, his deputy David Warner and the man who had the sandpaper in his possession at that time, Cameron Bancroft. But Saker felt it was a collective failure.

 

Finger-pointing to continue

"Obviously a lot of things went wrong at that time. The finger-pointing is going to go on and on and on. There were a lot of people to blame. It could have been me to blame, it could have been someone else. It could have been stopped and it wasn't, which is unfortunate," Saker told the  'Sydney Morning Herald'.

"Cameron's (Bancroft) a very nice guy. He's just doing it to get something off his chest ... He's not going to be the last," he added.

Saker lamented that the incident is going to be associated with Australian cricket forever and there is nothing one can do about it.

"You could point your finger at me, you could point your finger at Boof (then coach Darren Lehmann), could you point it at other people, of course, you could," he said.

"The disappointing thing is it's never going to go away. Regardless of what's said. We all know that we made a monumental mistake. The gravity wasn't as plain until it all came out," he added.

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Never going away

Saker's statement comes in the wake of Bancroft's startling revelation that there may have been wider knowledge of the ball-tampering plan within the Australian dressing room than the trio of players sanctioned by Cricket Australia.

Saker believes the incident will hound Australian cricket for decades like Trevor Chappell's underarm bowling against New Zealand 40 years ago.

While Cricket Australia issued a statement saying that it was open to any re-investigation into the incident, Saker said he was not sure what could come out of it.

"I don't think it'd be unfair. I just don't know what they're going to find out," Saker said.

"It's like the underarm, it's never going to go away."