Picking Cameron Bancroft in the Australian Test team for the upcoming series against India would not reopen old wounds but heal them.
The 31-year-old opener is the player who has paid the highest price for the 2018 ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town even though he received the lightest sentence at the time.
His punishment for foolishly using sandpaper to scuff up a ball against South Africa was a nine-month ban while Steve Smith and David Warner were suspended for a year.
Smith also lost the captaincy but has occasionally had a few fill-in roles in recent years while Warner was barred from ever holding a leadership role which even though he continued to rail against it, the fact is he was not likely to ever get that honour anyway.
Bancroft served his ban, was reinstated to the Test team relatively quickly for the 2019 Ashes tour and, like Warner, struggled to handle the swinging Dukes ball at the top of the order.
After just 44 runs at 11 in two Tests he was punted for another of Australia’s spin cycle of fringe openers in Marcus Harris and hasn’t had a look-in since.
Despite back-to-back Sheffield Shield seasons where he was unchallenged as the best batter in the wide brown land at first-class level, he is still no certainty to get the nod for the vacancy in the team created by the stress fractures in Cameron Green’s back.
He made an inauspicious start to his 2024-25 summer for WA when he was dismissed for a golden duck and then without scoring in the second dig by Queensland quick Michael Neser while Harris plundered a ton on the Junction Oval featherbed and teen prodigy Sam Konstas put his name up in lights with dual tons for NSW.
If form is indeed temporary and class is permanent, Bancroft deserves to be recalled ahead of these two rivals, Queensland left-hander Matt Renshaw and any other left-field suggestion plying their trade in the anonymity of the Shield ranks.
The speculation in Australian cricket circles in recent summers when Bancroft was constantly overlooked by selectors was that they did not want to rock the boat by bringing him back into the dressing room.
Not because of his reckless actions on the field on that fateful day against the Proteas during a spiteful series where both sides engaged in ugly acts on and off the field.
But due to an interview he gave in the 2021 off-season when he intimated that knowledge of the sandpaper scheme went far beyond himself and Warner as the chief instigators.
In response to a question about whether the bowlers knew, he replied with “it’s pretty probably self-explanatory” while also insisting that he took full responsibility for his actions and that the buck stops with himself.
Cameron Bancroft. (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)
Bowlers are notoriously finicky about the state of the ball and it is hard to believe that they would not have been consulted about such a plan before it was hatched or that they didn’t notice the rougher than usual surface on one side of the ball which was causing it to swing reverse ahead of schedule.
And the four bowlers in the Aussie attack that day are none other than the record-breaking quartet who will be in possession of the shiny red Kookaburra that will be in use at Perth’s Optus Stadium on November 22 in captain Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon.
If Bancroft gets the nod to open alongside Usman Khawaja, the sandpaper tape will be headline news for a day or two before everyone moves on to what’s really important – whether he can make the most of what would be his third and likely final chance to establish himself as a Test opener.
Best-case scenario and Australia will have another 30-something master of their domain providing reliability and runs against the new ball.
Prior to professionalism in the past three decades, Bancroft is at an age when many cricketers gave the game away because it was time to get a real job.
From the 1990s onwards, players like Dean Jones, Darren Lehmann, Michael Bevan, Jamie Cox, Ed Cowan, Chris Rogers, Adam Voges and Khawaja have shown with bulk runs in Shield cricket that the sweet spot for a top-order batter in their career is often in their early 30s, occasionally later.
Usman Khawaja. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
It’s at this point in time when they know their limitations as intently as their strengths so they are able to avoid the pitfalls and impetuosity of youth to accumulate runs at a higher rate.
Some are never able to get back into the Test team while others get one last chance, usually performing instead of perishing.
Bancroft has deficiencies in his game – his average of 26.23 from his 10 Tests is testament to that.
But he has also become a much more complete player in the five years since his last opportunity.
The conservative nature of Australia’s selectors meant they missed a chance to give Bancroft or another younger opener a chance to get into a groove while Warner played out an elongated farewell tour despite middling form.
As exciting as it would be to give a player like Konstas a rapid rise to the top at 19, it would also be a massive risk to his development to throw him to the lions of Jasprit Bumrah and co in the unofficial battle for global Test supremacy.
His time will come, much sooner than most Test prospects given Khawaja turns 38 in December and the team is in serious need of young blood.
But when it comes to this Test series against a team that has beaten Australia on four straight occasions home and abroad, it’s time for Australia to welcome Bancroft back into the fold.
He’s already been punished more than enough for one indiscretion.
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