Expectedly Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft had to face an awkward situation when the crowd at Newlands in Cape Town booed them. In fact, the whole of the Australian team was booed when they made their way out on the field on day four of the third Test. After being dismissed, both Bancroft and Smith faced loud booing. On day three, Bancroft was caught on camera tampering with the ball and after the day’s play, Smith along with Bancroft admitted to have fiddled with the ball’s condition. The admission sent shock-waves across cricket community.

Ahead of day four’s play, Smith and his deputy David Warner stepped down from their respective positions of captain and vice-captain. Subsequently, wicketkeeper Tim Paine was named as acting captain. Later in the day, Smith was handed one-match suspension and fined 100 per cent of his match fee. Bancroft, on the other hand, escaped the suspension but was charged 75 per cent of his match fee as a fine along with three demerit points.

Meanwhile, fans reacted to Smith and Bancroft’s punishment and ICC apparently was termed as ‘biased’ for handing just one-match ban to the Australian skipper. Apart from fans, out of favour Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh, who was handed a three-match ban on 2008 Australian tour for allegedly making a racist comment to Andrew Symonds during the Sydney Test, lashed out at ICC as well.

After the ball-tampering controversy, Australia suffered further embarrassment as they lost the Cape Town by a huge margin of 322 runs. With it, South Africa registered their second biggest win in Tests against Australia (in terms of runs).

It was Morne Morkel who did the bulk of the damage in Australia’s second innings. The pacer, who is set to retire from cricket after this Test series, scalped 5/23 as Australia were bundled out for just 107 runs. While Bancroft and Smith managed to score just 26 and seven respectively, Warner was top-scorer with 32 runs. South Africa now lead the four-match series 2-1. The fourth Test between the two sides will take place on March 30 at New Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 26, 2018 12:20 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).