Let Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft play. That is the call from the Australian Cricketers Association following the release of the two reports yesterday into Australia’s cricket culture and governance.

On Tuesday, the ACA called on Cricket Australia to immediately lift the bans imposed on the three test stars following their involvement in the sandpaper affair in Cape Town earlier this year.

Smith, the captain at the time, and Warner, who was his deputy, were banned from playing for Australia for a year. Bancroft was given a nine-month ban for using sandpaper to rough the ball illegally.

The ACA does not want the bans quashed. However, it says it does think the culture within the wider game created “a web of influences – including good intentions gone awry – that made ball tampering more likely than not”.

“The leadership of CA should also accept responsibility for its inadvertent (but foreseeable) failure to create and support a culture in which the will-to-win was balanced by an equal commitment to moral courage and restraint,” the players’ association said.

More to come