Bancroft's Durham deal marks the end of Australia opener's enforced exile

JAMES COYNE: For Bancroft, it is the next step in what he must hope is a return to the top level after being the player who tampered with the ball in the Newlands Test. Some will call it rehabilitation – but that is surely overegging the pudding

^{Cameron Bancroft will join Durham in 2019}

The news that Cameron Bancroft has signed for a county next season is hardly to be filed in the folder marked ‘earth-shattering’.

The moment that a top-level Australian player drops out of the national reckoning, it is not likely to escape the attention of county coaches or chief executives. And there is the small matter of a World Cup and Ashes series in this country next summer.

What marks this out, though, is that Bancroft has in theory signed up for the entire county season, except in case of being called up by Australia. He and his management are said to consider this his best step right now.

Whatever his circumstances, which are unusual, that is a rare undertaking for a modern-day overseas player still aspiring to play both for his country and in T20 franchise cricket. Of course, Australia A-tours or training camps could still put the kybosh on some of it.

For Bancroft, it is the next step in what he must hope is a gradual return to the top level after being the player who tampered with the ball in the Newlands Test in March. Some will call it rehabilitation – but that is surely overegging the pudding. Many of us out there thought a nine-month ban a draconian punishment for the actual offence.

^{Bancroft is serving a Cricket Australia suspension for ball-tampering}

Yes, he cheated. Yes, he lied about cheating. So he deserved to be banned – and probably beyond the lenient ICC regulations on tampering (which have since been strengthened, as Sri Lanka’s Dinesh Chandimal is finding out). But, for most of us, the original offence is not up there with match-fixing, spot-fixing or even abusing an umpire.

The trio were carrying the can for the misdemeanours of Australia teams on the field in recent years. But I thought that the punishments also said something wider about modern corporate Australia.

It may be admirable to place huge store on cricket’s place in a nation’s culture; I wish more Britons in this football-obsessed country felt the same way about our summer game. But the levels of outrageous indignation from some Australians verged on the puritanical.

The power of money and commerce in this sport were all too clear. Cricket Australia were on the verge of a major rights deal at the time. And they had their commercial partners on the phone, urging action against players who had undermined the “values” they had signed up for in their sponsorship and commercial deals.

The punishments were still not enough to save Magellan from pulling the plug on a three-year deal. CA reacted with the firmest of punishments – though not for actual ball-tampering.

“They haven't been charged by Cricket Australia for ball-tampering,” CA chief executive James Sutherland told ESPNcricinfo. “It's something that's important to remind people that the code is worth reading… It relates to contrary to the spirit of the game, it relates to denigrating the game or having an impact on the reputation and image of the game, causing damage to the game…”

JAMES COYNE: Ball-tampering case rams down our throats how our sport has become about more than just the cricket

It was generally held that, though Bancroft had the sandpaper in his pocket and did the scratching, Steve Smith (as captain) and David Warner (seemingly the instigator in this case) committed a worse offence – reflected in their year-long bans from playing in Australia compared to Bancroft’s nine months.

And yet their route back into the national reckoning is likely to be smoother, as they are unequivocally top-tier players crucial to Australia’s World Cup and Ashes chances. All three players gave teary-eyed quasi-mea culpa press conferences after news of their bans, and Bancroft’s killer quote was: “I’ve given up my spot for free”.

Bancroft, like the other two, is still banned from playing state and international cricket in Australia – in his case until January 2019 – but he has been cut some slack. He has been able to play the Strike League tournament in the Northern Territory, and received special dispensation from clubs in Western Australia to allow him to play for Willetton in his home state. WA District Cricket Association clubs apparently voted 14–2 in favour.

Fittingly for the modern sportsman, Bancroft was doing yoga when the clubs passed their judgement. Other than playing club cricket, he has tried to turn his suspension into a positive. As part of his punishment, the trio are each required to complete 100 hours’ community service.

Bancroft has volunteered for a Perth charity working with children who have cancer; he has done a Spanish-language course. He will surely reflect that time out of the cricket bubble has been good for expanding his horizons.

In the context of the Australian ban, it was hard to see how Somerset – who during the Ashes had signed Bancroft as an overseas player for 2018 – could have carried on with the deal, though the Global T20 Canada had few scruples in signing up Smith and Warner.

Sure enough, Somerset cancelled Bancroft’s contract and replaced him with the man who some thought should have been opening for Australia instead of him, Matt Renshaw. It worked out all right for Somerset in the end, as Renshaw piled up the runs in the English spring. The odds are that Bancroft will do the same next spring, even if opening the batting at the Riverside in April is on balance a tougher prospect than Taunton. Maybe that’s why he’s gone there.

^{Bancroft was due to be at Somerset in 2018}

Durham chief executive Tim Bostock told The Cricketer that – though he was not in the role at the time – their county would have struggled to justify signing Bancroft for the current season either. Indeed, Bostock, a former Minor Counties cricketer, relocated from the banking sector in Australia to take the Durham job this summer, so he has an insight into the sense of feeling there.

“It was very raw at the time, the emotions coming out of Australia,” he said. “I’m not sure we would have signed him either, to be honest. I’m not sure how that would have stacked up, with him being banned by Cricket Australia and then signing for a county. That probably wouldn’t quite have seemed right.

“However, he’s eligible to play in Australia from the start of next year. And he’s totally taken responsibility for his actions and been impressive in the way he’s gone about it. I think there is a sense of goodwill towards him.”

By next April, yet more water will have flowed under the bridge, and Bancroft will probably arrive on a tide of goodwill. Although the idea of Australians coming over to play for counties and top up their green-wicket experience ahead of an Ashes series does occasionally raise hackles, there is a great deal of sympathy for Durham as they seek to overcome strong financial punishments enforced by the ECB in late 2016.

They have been demoted to Division Two and their squad raided for virtually all their experienced players except Paul Collingwood, who is 42 and possibly in his last season as a player.

In a squad full of greenhorns, the role of Durham’s overseas player is probably more important than at other counties. Tom Latham, an understated but underrated Kiwi, has not just scored plenty of runs this season, he has captained Durham's white-ball teams (to a surprise Vitality Blast quarter-final) and county officials have praised his impact. But Latham is unavailable next year due to New Zealand’s World Cup preparations.

Bostock insists they have done their research on Latham's replacement: “We know what we’re getting. We’ve done our due diligence on Bancroft. We know enough people around the game to get a feel for who he is.

“I think the signing underlines our ambition. And we’re getting a hungry young player – he fits exactly the kind of age and profile we need – who wants to score lots of runs and have a positive effect on our dressing-room.”

Still, Bancroft has plenty of work to do to win back his Australian spot. Even before the ball-tampering episode, he was considered lucky to be in the Test XI in South Africa, given his wonky technique against the new ball in the Ashes just concluded. He has played just a single T20 international, back in early 2016, and has been starved of the opportunity to top up his white-ball expertise since the ban, so he is not likely to be in the World Cup reckoning either.

However, nothing changes perceptions about batsmen like a bucketload of runs. The chances are that it will come too late for either the Ashes or the World Cup. But no one can accuse Bancroft of not giving himself the best chance now.

Tim Bostock was speaking through 188BET. 188BET are proud sponsors of Durham CCC. For odds on all the latest cricket click here