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'I wanted to fit in', laments cheating Australia batsman Cameron Bancroft

Disgraced Australia batsman Cameron Bancroft on Wednesday revealed he agreed to a ball-tampering plot because he wanted to be accepted in the team.

Cameron Bancroft will be available for selection for the Australia Test team from 31 December after serving a nine month for cheating.
Cameron Bancroft will be available for selection for the Australia Test team from 31 December after serving a nine month for cheating. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
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Bancroft told the Australian broadcaster Fox Sports that vice-captain David Warner asked him to use sandpaper to rough up the match ball during the third Test against South Africa in March.

The cheating was exposed by TV cameras at the ground in Cape Town.

"Dave suggested to me to carry the action out on the ball given the situation we were in the game and I didn't know any better," said Bancroft.

"I didn't know any better because I just wanted to fit in and feel valued really. As simple as that.

"The decision was based around my values, what I valued at the time, and I valued fitting in ... you hope that fitting in earns you respect and with that, I guess, there came a pretty big cost for the mistake."

Australian cricket's ruling body, Cricket Australia, banned Bancroft for nine months for his part in the plot while Warner and skipper Steve Smith were suspended for a year.

At the time, Bancroft had been forging an opening batting partnership with the more experienced Warner.

"I had a choice and I made a massive mistake and that is what is in my control," said Bancroft, who admitted he often pondered what would have happened if he had refused to carry out the suggestions.

"I would have gone to bed and I would have felt like I had let everybody down," he said. "I would have felt like I had let the team down. I would have left like I had hurt our chances to win the game of cricket."

'Poor leadership'

Last week Smith admitted he failed as a captain by turning a blind eye to the shenanigans.

Asked what happened in the changing rooms at Cape Town before Bancroft attempted to cheat, he said: "For me in the room, I walked past something and had the opportunity to stop it and I didn't do it and that was my leadership failure.

"It was the potential for something to happen and it went on and happened out in the field," he added.

"I had the opportunity to stop it at that point rather than say: 'I don't want to know anything about it'."

Cricket Australia's review of the prevailing attitudes around the team highlighted an arrogant and controlling culture as partly contributing to players' desire to bend the rules.

Kevin Roberts, who replaced James Sutherland as the head of Cricket Australia following the review, said that it was time to move on.

"The events of Cape Town were investigated and dealt with some nine months ago now so there's no new news there," he told reporters ahead of the third Test against India in Melbourne.

Bancroft is expected to make his return for the Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash League on 30 December. Smith and Warner will be available from late March.
 

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