Faf du Plessis had a piece of advice for Steve Smith after ball-tampering fiasco

The month of March was no less than shambolic for 29-year-old Aussie Steve Smith as it turned his career upside down. He was found guilty in the ball-tampering scandal at Newlands in Cape Town. The talented cricketer later admitted about the wrongdoing and was later handed a one-year ban by Cricket Australia (CA) from international, domestic, as well as Big Bash League (BBL) cricket.

The New South Wales-born batsman has thereafter played T20 cricket in Canada and also went on to represent Barbados Tridents in this year’s Caribbean Premier League (CPL). In the meantime, Faf du Plessis, the Proteas skipper, in the series, recently mentioned that he had sent a message to Smith after the abysmal incident. Moreover, he also revealed the contents of the message.

Du Plessis’ words for advice

“When it happened (in Cape Town), the first thing that I felt I needed to do was to send Steve a message. Just to tell him ‘listen, I have been through something similar like this, it is very tough and your character is going to be tested but stay strong – I know that mentally, you are a very strong guy’.

Because he’s proven that in his career, ‘and at the end of this you’ll look back in a few years and see that it’s made you into a stronger and better cricketer in your mind’,” du Plessis was quoted as saying in cricket.com.au.

The South African captain also had to encounter difficulties when he was filmed applying sugar-laden saliva to rub the ball back in 2016 at Hobart. Du Plessis was found guilty of breaching the International Cricket Council (ICC) Code of Conduct and was fined 100 percent of his match fees and was given three demerit points. Recently, du Plessis became the first captain to beat Australia at home in all three formats.

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