'Some people have names stored away, ready to pull trigger when time is right': Adam Gilchrist on Sandpapergate

Former Australia Gilchrist said that Cricket Australia is responsible for the lingering doubts over the Sandpapergate scandal.

Cameron Bancroft's recent interview with the Guardian has reignited the Sandpapergate scandal with many lingering questions regarding the scandal now coming to the surface. Australia's Bancroft was handed a nine-month ban, while Steve Smith and David Warner were handed a 12-month ban for their roles in the Cape Town ball-tampering incident.

Adam Gilchrist and Cameron Bancroft. (File)

However, in a recent interview, Bancroft was asked if any of the bowlers knew about it, and he responded that the "awareness" of certain players is "self-explanatory". Bancroft's remarks have opened a fresh floodgate of questions as to who all knew about the incident.

Former Australia cricketer Adam Gilchrist believes Cricket Australia's mishandling of the investigation into the incident has led to lingering questions over Sandpapergate. The former wicketkeeper-batsman added that eventually, all the names will be revealed.

"It will linger forever, whether it is someone's book or an ad hoc interview," Gilchrist said on SEN's Gilly and Goss podcast, as reported by Fox Sports.

"Eventually I think names will be named. I think there are some people who have it stored away and are ready to pull the trigger when the time is right. I think Cricket Australia are responsible for why this will be continually asked. When they did their investigation at the time they had Patty Howard the high-performance general manager, Iain Roy was the integrity officer," he added.

"They went there and did this very quick review of that isolated incident and perhaps no one in the team knew. Perhaps Cam did grab the sandpaper on his own accord and walked out there and did not tell anyone," Gilchrist elaborated.

"There was an opportunity for CA if they were going to make such a strong statement they needed to do a more thorough investigation to work out where the root of the problem was. Anyone would be naive to think people were not aware with what was going on about ball maintenance.

"I don't think Cricket Australia wanted to go there. They did not want to go any deeper than that superficial example of ball tampering. They did not investigate to see whether it was systemic had it been going on and on and on. Around the cricketing globe it was widely accepted a lot of teams were doing it," he signed off.