David Warner, Steve Smith runs cold comfort for Tim Paine’s Australia

Melbourne:As Steve Smith and David Warner padded up at suburban Sydney cricket grounds over the weekend, the warm spring sunshine may have seemed fitting weather for the banned Australian cricketers to take a small but important step in their rehabilitation. On the other side of the globe, however, their former test teammates stepped into a Dubai furnace to prepare for a series against Pakistan that threatens to be another painful reminder of Australia’s fall from grace.
As much as new coach Justin Langer and captain Tim Paine speak of building unity in the United Arab Emirates, the narrative of Australian cricket has become a discourse of division, between a team struggling to forge a new identity and individuals plotting their own course to redemption. It has been six months since the ball-tampering scandal erupted in South Africa, and former captain Smith and fellow outcast Warner are only halfway through their suspensions. But it is already clear that the players’ paths will almost inevitably converge with the arc of a team that is desperate to be competitive for next year’s World Cup and the Ashes.
“If our environment’s right and they’re playing well, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be welcomed back in to help us win the World Cup and help us win the Ashes next summer,” Langer said last week. Governing body Cricket Australia was widely praised for taking a hard line in punishing Smith, Warner and opening batsman Cameron Bancroft, the third player in the ‘sandpaper-gate’ fiasco in Cape Town. In addition to being shut out of international and state-level cricket, the three are banned from playing for Big Bash sides in the lucrative domestic Twenty20 tournament.
Smith and Bancroft are to be excluded from leadership roles for another 12 months after their suspensions finish, while Warner, seen as the chief conspirator in the bungled ball-tampering caper, is banned from them for life.