Sandpaper Gate resurgence doesn't help Steve Smith's Australia captaincy case, says Mark Taylor

Former Australian captain Mark Taylor has said while Steve Smith is a potential candidate to replace Tim Paine as the national team's captain, the resurgence of the Sandpaper Gate scandal does not help his case.

In March 2018, Smith was banned for a year and had been stripped off his captaincy after it was not revealed that he was aware of the Sandpaper tactic, which was executed by Cameron Bancroft during the Cape Town Test. While Cricket Australia had declared that Smith's then-deputy David Warner would never be considered for the national team's leadership, Smith was banned from captaincy only for two years, which ended in March 2020.

"It doesn't help. No doubt about it, it doesn't help his case, because he like I'm sure most people involved in the game would like this just to go away; which it won't go away," Mark Taylor, told Sports Sunday.

Soon after the Sandpaper Gate, Australia named Tim Paine as their captain. However, Australia have not produced the desired results under the Tasmanian's leadership. Moreover, Paine is expected to bow out of the game after the upcoming 2021-22 Ashes at home.

"There's no doubt there's a growing momentum around Steve Smith being a potential captain, no doubt about that. The bleeding obvious to me is they didn't know that it had been doctored. You only have to read what they said during the week. If I could just read it out: 'We did not know a foreign substance was taken on to the field to alter the condition of the ball'. And as they said, the two umpires in the game did not change the ball. So there was an attempt to change the condition of the ball but they didn't get to do it. The umpire said, 'That ball's still fine, let's get on with it. So they did not know," added Mark Taylor.

The Sandpaper Gate scandal resurfaced earlier this month when Bancroft, who faced a nine-month suspension for the tampering with the ball, revealed in an interview that the bowlers were aware of the infamous plan as well. However, the quartet of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Nathan Lyon jointly released a statement recently denying it.