LONDON: Former England skipper Nasser Hussain says the premeditated nature of Australia’s ball-tampering sets it apart from previous cases of cheating in cricket and is adamant that captain Steve Smith must shoulder lots of the blame.

“Ball-tampering has always been part of the game, so we should be careful not to get too holier-than-thou,” Hussain wrote in a column for Britain’s Daily Mail. “But what makes the Australians’ behaviour in Cape Town different from other instances, I believe, is the premeditated nature of the crime.

“Steve Smith and his ‘leadership group’ sat down at lunch on the third day of the Test and decided that the team’s youngest player, Cameron Bancroft, would do the dirty work.”

Hussain lambasted the ‘double standards’ of the Austr­alian side.

“Some of the stuff he was alleged to have said to England’s players during the Ashes was way too personal,” said Hussain, who captained England from 1999 until 2003. “Yet the moment anyone has a go at him, he starts bleating about where the line is.”

The former England skipper said Smith must be held to account for his role in the scandal. “He finds himself in charge of a very good cricket team but a team that are not especially popular, even back home in Australia. It’s not necessarily the captain’s job to be popular, but it is his job to ensure his side is playing within the spirit of the game.

“It will be very difficult for Smith now to carry on as captain once he returns from his one-match ban. Do a cricketing nation as proud as Australia really want a cheat in charge? I just can’t see it.”

Meanwhile, current England captain Joe Root was unaware of Smith’s side employing similar tactics during the recent Ashes series.

“Not to my knowledge. I was not aware of any ball tampering,” Root told reporters in Auckland. “I have enough to worry about... but it’s disappointing for Test cricket and cricket in general.”

Root added that while the burden of responsibility for teams’ behaviour always fell upon the captain, some of it rested with the players themselves.

“As captain you’re responsible for how everyone else behaves. I have to look after my own group and make sure I’m happy with how they conduct themselves. As an international player you should know the rules. I should not have to back that up. It’s as simple as that.”

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2018