Cricket Australia (CA) CEO, Kevin Roberts admitted that the governing body is considering to lift the ban on the trio after repeated appeals from the players union.
Meanwhile, CA has come under pressure from the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) to end the bans following the release of the Longstaff review, which laid some of the blame for the Cape Town scandal at the door of the board.
“The ACA submission around the players’ sanctions was received by the board a few days ago,” Roberts told reporters. “They wrote to the board rather than to me or all management. So not for me to comment on a board matter other than to say that the board will be respecting that submission and giving it due consideration,” he added.
CA handed sanctions to Steven Smith, David Warner for 12 months in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal. However, Cameron Bancroft got a 9-month ban. The ban also extends to the domestic Sheffield Shield and the Big Bash Twenty20 competition.
Roberts was at the centre of an acrimonious pay dispute with players last year. He said that repairing relations with the players’ union remained a top priority.
“I think what’s really important is that we at Cricket Australia need to embrace the players and we need to make sure that the players feel a really valued part of Cricket Australia. There’s no doubt that we need to face up to the review and the fact that it acknowledged that the organisation hasn’t been united enough across the playing and long-playing sides,” Roberts concluded.
