Gibson: Proteas have put ball-tampering scandal behind them

Proteas coach Ottis Gibson insists that he and his team have long forgotten the ball-tampering scandal that shook the cricketing world at Newlands earlier this year.

Gibson was speaking to reporters ahead of his side’s only practice match on their Australian tour against the Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra on Wednesday.

This will be first time the Proteas and Australia go head-to-head after Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were found guilty of tampering with the ball in the third Test at in Cape Town in March.

ALSO READ: ACA push to get banned trio back on the field

Warner and Smith each received one-year suspensions while Bancroft was banned for nine months.

Gibson said on Tuesday: “We’ve moved on a long time, we’ve had other cricket; we’ve been to Sri Lanka.

“We’ve put this (scandal) behind us a long time ago. It happened how many months ago now and obviously it shouldn’t of happened.

“When we look at the cricket that was played in that series after every game there was some sort of incident and the standard of cricket that got played never got mentioned.

“It’s a disappointment that when cricket gets lost amongst all the other stuff, because at the end of the day that’s why we are all here.”

The Proteas will play three ODIs and a one-off T20I Down Under with the first international set to be played in Perth on Sunday.

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