sussexpob wrote:I'd give Smith 2 extra years for his OTT press conference tears. I'm 99% sure that was frankly embarrassing acting
You're a harsh man sussex. I've seen Smith attempt to act in his various endorsement deals/ads over here. Trust me, he's not even that good an actor. His bat would be more animated in comparison.
The other thing that makes it seem genuine to me rather than staged is Lehmann standing down after Smith's conference. After CA concluded that he didn't know what was going on and let him keep his job, to see him resign over Smith's conference means that he clearly thought the bloke was genuine. Yes, it could all have been elaborately staged, but to be quite honest, I don't believe that a bunch of chumps who were so daft to get caught cheating in such a ham-fisted way would have the wherewithal to stage something quite so elaborate. Occam's razor and all.
I think Smith was sincere in his apology, and that he and Bancroft will work hard to regain their standing.
As to whether others knew about it, or if it has happened before, the whole team and management appear to have concluded that the answer is no. Either the players have got together and come up with the same story, and are letting the three take the fall for the team, or it's true. Given Cricket Australia have concluded that it's true, we can have our suspicions (and it sure does seem unlikely that the incident was this isolated), but we'll never know for sure.