Rajasthan Royals may remove Smith from captaincy

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Bengaluru, March 25: Bengaluru, March 25: The ripples from the ball tampering storm that hit the Cape Town Test in South Africa felt in distant India too as Rajasthan Royals are considering the future of Steve Smith as their captain.

The Royals representatives met BCCI officials on Sunday (March 24) and discussed the way forward after Cricket Australia asked Smith to step down as captain midway through the third Test as Tim Paine took over as the captain. David Warner too has been asked to vacate his vice-captain post by the CA.

ALSO READ: ASC CALLS FOR SMITH'S REMOVAL | SMITH UNDER CA SCANNER | SMITH AND DESPERATION | SMITH, BANCROFT ADMIT TO TAMPERING

"We have been made aware of the controversy of ball tampering in the ongoing Australia-South Africa series and await further instructions from BCCI before we make any announcement," said Ranjit Barthakur, executive chairman of Rajasthan Royals.

Barthakur made it clear that Royals have a zero tolerance policy towards any unfair actions.

"We at Rajasthan Royals will not tolerate any actions that are unfair by definition and bring disrepute to the game of cricket. Our Zero tolerance policy applies to everyone in our team," said Barthakur.

It has been understood that Royals officials had extensive parley with their BCCI counterparts and came to the decision that they may find a new captain for the upcoming edition of the IPL - possibly Ajinkya Rahane.

After retaining him ahead of the IPL auction, Rajasthan Royals had last month announced Smith as their captain through Live TV announcement amidst much fanfare.

Smith had captained Rising Pune Supergiants in the last two editions of the IPL after Royals were banned by the BCCI.

Sunrisers Hyderabad have named Warner as their captain for this season's IPL but so far the franchise has not taken any call on the future of Warner, even though several quarters have urged them to remove the Australian from the top post.

The matters came to such a passe after CA hastily asked Smith and Warner to step down from their respective posts with the Australian team with an inquiry into the ball tampering issue pending.

"Following discussions with Steve Smith and David Warner they have agreed to stand down as captain and vice-captain respectively for the remainder of this Test match," Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland said.

"This Test match needs to proceed, and in the interim we will continue to investigate this matter with the urgency that it demands.

"As I said earlier, Cricket Australia and Australian cricket fans expect certain standards of conduct from cricketers representing our country, and on this occasion these standards have not been met. All Australians, like us, want answers and we will keep you updated on our findings as a matter of priority," said Sutherland.

David Peever, the CA chairman, said the decision to appoint Paine followed an emergency Board meeting of the CA.