Pat Cummins act comes to light amid ugly claims about Cameron Bancroft's Test snub

Aussie cricket captain Pat Cummins made the classy move to call Cameron Bancroft ahead of the Australia Test team announcement on Wednesday to let him know he wouldn't be in the squad. Fans have been left bewildered after Bancroft was snubbed from the Test squad to face the West Indies with Cameron Green moving back into the starting XI at No.4 and Steve Smith shifting to opener to take the position of David Warner.

The move to shift one of Australia's greatest ever No.4 batters, Smith, up the order to opener has been an eye-opener for many with legends such as Ricky Ponting calling for a specialist opener to fill the void. However, chief selector George Bailey admitted they felt it was important to find a position for Green in the starting XI since they considered him one of the best six batters in the country.

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This left Bancroft once again feeling unfortunate considering he has topped the run scoring charts in the Sheffield Shield across the last two seasons. Bancroft's manager, Ben Tippett, told SEN Radio that Bancroft was feeling 'upset' over the disappointment of not making the team.

Smith's move up the order, and Green's move into the middle, could also see the team remain stable until the retirement of either Usman Khawaja or Smith. This means players such as Bancroft and Marcus Harris who have been on the fringe might be waiting even longer.

But in a classy move from captain Cummins, Cricket.com.au and SEN reporter Adam White claimed Cummins personally rang Bancroft to tell him the news before it was released to the public, while also assuring him it has nothing to do with the ball-tampering scandal of 2018. In some ways, this moves to dispel ugly claims that Bancroft may have been 'black-listed' from the Aussie team due to comments he made a few years ago.

Claims have emerged that Bancroft could be on the outer with the team due to explosive suggestions he made in 2021 that the Aussie bowling quartet of Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon knew the ball was being tampered with in the Cape Town sandpaper scandal of 2018. However, these claims have been emphatically shut down from within the Aussie camp.

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Recently, Bancroft said he is confident his relationship with the team is fine, despite appearing to throw bowlers Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood and Lyon under the bus in relation to their knowledge of the tampering at the time. While Bancroft, Warner and then-captain Smith were the only players punished for their involvement, Bancroft implied that the bowling quartet knew what was going on.

"Obviously what I did benefits bowlers and the awareness around that, probably, is self-explanatory," he said in an interview in 2021. When pressed on the matter he said: "I think it's pretty probably self-explanatory".

And after the team announcement, selector Bailey quelled any rumours going around about his non-selection. “Categorically no (issue between players and Bancroft). And I’ve shared this with Cameron on a number of occasions,” Bailey said of the reports.

“It’s never been discussed, from the panel’s perspective, it’s purely a cricketing decision. There’s not a member of the team who would have an issue with Cam playing. We certainly don’t have an issue with it.

“I think a lot of people forget the fact that Cam’s actually played Test cricket since returning from the ban. It was a long time ago. We’ve all moved well past that. I’d be disappointed if people were looking to that as a reason… that’s not the case. Never has been and never will be.”

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