Bancroft cheated to ‘fit in’: WACA chief

Cameron Bancroft’s sandpaper use was an indictment on Steve Smith and David Warner, WACA chief Christina Matthews says.

Cameron Bancroft during the sandpaper incident in Cape Town. Picture: Getty Images

Cameron Bancroft’s decision to use sandpaper on the ball in Cape Town was an indictment on Steve Smith and David Warner according to WACA chief executive Christina Matthews.

The administrator and former Test wicket keeper believes the young opener felt he could not say no.

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“I think he was naive and desperate to belong and so he was caught in a position of ‘what to do’ and I think that the real indictment, you know, that when your captain kind of knows what’s going on and doesn’t stop it and your vice-captain is involved you sort of go ‘where do you go?’,” she said on SEN radio.

Bancroft during the sandpaper incident in South Africa. Picture: Supplied

“Now he says, and we’ve said the whole time, his responsibility was to say ‘no’, but for whatever reason he felt he couldn’t. But he’s done everything he can since to take responsibility and make the most of it.

“I think he’s learned a lot about himself and what he stand for and he will forever be — I don’t know if embarrassed is the right word — but he’ll forever have to live with it no matter how good his career is or how bad his career is but there’s no doubt he’ll bounce back.”

Bancroft, who was banned for nine months, can return to cricket in January.

“As each day in December passes he’s smiling broader and broader,” she said. “And he’s started doing a few more public appearances, so he was a guest at a breakfast this morning and he’s happy to talk openly about it because he’s learnt so much himself.

“He’s probably had an easier road than the other two because he’s been very set and we’ve been very set in how to go about it. So he hasn’t chased other tournaments around the world. He’s worked with the squad and to be fair he’s had a contract so he’s had obligations as well.

“But he’s really worked at getting the most out of premier cricket. He’s captained his side this year, which he’s never done before and he’s loved that. He’s had reasonable success at club cricket all through and so he’s kind of making a normal progression back into it so I think he’ll be ready to go on the 29th of December in his first game.”

Bancroft with WACA CEO Christina Matthews. Picture: AFP

Matthews sat by Bancroft in the press conference when he returned to Australia in disgrace and has been part of a group overseeing his rehabilitation.

“We’ve had quite a team approach to it so there’s been three or four of us who’ve had specific roles with Cameron,” she said. “Mine was to manage his community service and work with him and our psychologist and our head of high performance on what we wanted him to do.

“We didn’t want it to be a ticking the box exercise and do a hundred hours at a junior club and there you go. We wanted it to be a learning experience for him and to be fair to him he wanted it to be a productive experience as well so it was exciting last week when I could write to Cricket Australia and letting them know that Cameron had completed his community hours. He had to do a hundred and he did at least double that.

“He wasn’t concerned at how much he did because when he started doing it he realised how much he had to give and how much he learned from working with people in environments that he’d never had a role to do. So he did things like working with kids with cancer to kids at schools in breakfast clubs in disadvantaged areas, he did some work with our diversity groups at the WACA junior cricket disabled cricket things like that and a whole lot of variety of things.”