Amidst the ongoing ball-tampering scandal, Australia named wicket-keeper batsman Tim Paine as an acting captain after Steve Smith was removed from the post. Paine captained the side for the remainder of the Cape Town Test, which Australia eventually lost by a huge margin of 322 runs. Set a mammoth 430 to win, Australia were bundled out for just 107 runs. Reflecting back on the ball tampering incident, Paine said it has been a horrible time for the team, especially given the reaction of fans back home. "It has been a horrible 24 hours. We're struggling but the reality and the enormity of what's happened has probably started to sink in," Paine was quoted as saying by AFP.

"I don't think we expected this to be as big as it has been, the fall-out we have seen from back home. It was extremely difficult but it's no excuse for what happened in the last 45 minutes of play," he added.

"We're still the Australian cricket team and we're expected to put up a better effort than we did. Certainly, it was in some horrible circumstances and probably some circumstances we brought on ourselves,” the wicket-keeper batsman added.

Meanwhile, Smith and his deputy David Warner are likely to face a life ban in the ball-tampering incident. Smith was handed a one-match ban by ICC after he admitted to ball-tampering. Fans, however, feel the ban is not enough for ‘such’ a shameful incident.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 26, 2018 05:19 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).