2018 sandpapergate | You could point your finger at me too, says David Saker

Saker lamented that the incident is going to be associated with Australian cricket forever and there is nothing one can do about it.

Former Australia bowling coach David Saker, who was with the team during the 2018 ball-tampering scandal, on Sunday said it was a “monumental mistake” which could have been prevented and for which fingers can also be pointed at him. The review of Australia’s win-at-all-cost team culture after the incident led to varying punishments for then captain Steve Smith, his deputy David Warner and the man who had the sandpaper in his possession at that time, pacer Cameron Bancroft. But Saker felt it was collective failure. “Obviously a lot of things went wrong at that time. The finger-pointing is going to go on and on and on. There was a lot of people to blame. It could have been me to blame, it could have been someone else. It could have been stopped and it wasn’t, which is unfortunate,” Saker told the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’.