David Saker on Newlands controversy: 'The finger-pointing is going to go on and on and on'
The then Australia bowling coach has likened the team’s ‘monumental mistake’ to the underarm incident of 1981
ESPNcricinfo staff16-May-2021
‘We all know that we made a monumental mistake’ – David Saker•Getty Images
David Saker, Australia’s bowling coach at the time of the Newlands ball-tampering scandal, has said the controversy will continue to taint Australian cricket much like the underarm incident of 1981 has done.Related
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Saker’s comments came in the wake of the publication of an interview in , where Cameron Bancroft – the player caught using sandpaper on the ball at Newlands – hinted that there was wider knowledge of the ball-tampering plan within the Australian dressing room beyond the trio of players sanctioned by Cricket Australia: himself, captain Steven Smith and vice-captain David Warner.Without going into details of what went on in the dressing room, Saker said there was no foreseeable end to the blame game surrounding the events at Newlands.”Obviously a lot of things went wrong at that time. The finger-pointing is going to go on and on and on,” Saker told and .”There was 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.”Cameron’s a very nice guy. He’s just doing it to get something off his chest … He’s not going to be the last.”You could point your finger at me, you could point your finger at Boof [then head coach Darren Lehmann], could you point it at other people, of course you could.”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.”Following the publication of the Bancroft interview, Cricket Australia had issued a statement clarifying it was still open to hearing and investigating any new information brought to light about the Newlands incident, whether from Bancroft or anyone else.Saker wasn’t sure what a reopened investigation would achieve.”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.”