Cricket Australia Should Have Probed Ball-Tampering Scandal Thoroughly Says Adam Gilchrist

Former Australia wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist has blamed Cricket Australia (CA) for not investigating the 2018 ball-tampering scandal thoroughly due to which questions are still being raised over it.

"I think Cricket Australia are responsible for why this will be continually asked. When they did their investigation at the time they had Patty Howard the high-performance general manager, Iain Roy was the integrity officer," said Gilchrist on SEN's Gilly and Goss show.

"They went there and did this very quick review of that isolated incident and perhaps no one in the team knew," added Gilchrist.

On Monday, another former Aussie cricketer, Michael Clarke said he was not surprised by Cameron Bancroft, one of the players involved in the scandal, alleging that bowlers could also have been known about it besides him, Steve Smith and David Warner.

Gilchrist blamed CA for not getting to the root of the scandal. "Anyone would be naive to think people were not aware with what was going on about ball maintenance. I don't think Cricket Australia wanted to go there. They did not want to go any deeper than that superficial example of ball-tampering," said Gilchrist.

"They did not investigate to see whether it was systemic had it been going on and on and on. Around the cricketing globe it was widely accepted a lot of teams were doing it," he said.

Bancroft, who was caught using sandpaper on the ball during the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town in 2018, got a lengthy ban along with the then captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner after CA investigated the incident.

"Perhaps Cam (Bancroft) did grab the sandpaper on his own accord and walked out there and did not tell anyone. There was an opportunity for CA if they were going to make such a strong statement they needed to do a more thorough investigation to work out where the root of the problem was," said Gilchrist.