“Steve Smith Took the Blame for Everyone Else” says Andrew Flintoff

Former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff believes that Steve Smith took the blame of the infamous ball-tampering scandal in 2018 to protect his team.

The ball-tampering scandal rocked the cricket world in 2018 and many questions were raised over the Australian team. The incident took place in Cape town during a test against South Africa in 2018. The kangaroos were accused of changing the conditions of the ball using sandpaper after being caught on a CCTV camera. 

In an inquiry set up by the Cricket Australia, skipper Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and the opener Cameron Bancroft were found guilty and were banned from the sport. While Steve Smith and David Warner had to survive a one-year ban from cricket, Bancroft was banned for a period of nine months. Besides this, Smith was divested of his leadership role for 2 years and a lifetime leadership ban has been imposed on Warner. 

Andrew Flintoff supports Steve Smith

After the two years of that infamous scandal, Andrew Flintoff shared his thoughts regarding the same. Andrew revealed that Steve Smith took the blame upon himself to save the integrity of the Australian team. He also admitted the tampering of the ball cannot be done without the support of the whole team. 

The England legend told Talksport, “I can’t believe that the whole team isn’t in on it. As a bowler, if someone gives me a ball that’s been tampered with, I know initially. One of the things that Steve Smith did is take the blame for everyone else,”

He further added, “The sandpaper is wrong, but it’s stupid more than anything. But I can’t believe that everyone in the team wasn’t involved in some way or another,”

Andrew Flintoff had taken 400 wickets and scored more than 7000 runs in his cricketing career. He retired from the game after Ashes 2009. 

Sharing his experience Flintoff said, “Things like ball-tampering have gone on for a long, long time and I think it’s just the degrees where you take it. We were accused of putting sweets on the ball. People put suncream on it, tried everything they could.”