Former Australia skipper Steve Smith has revealed that Cricket Australia executives James Sutherland and Pat Howard played in establishing a toxic culture of winning without counting the costs. Smith, who was suspended for a year by Cricket Australia for his role in the ball-tampering saga in Cape Town, said that there was a lot of pressure put by Howard and former chief executive Sutherland on players after a horrible Test loss to South Africa in Hobart in 2016. "I remember James Sutherland and Pat Howard coming into the rooms there and saying 'we don't pay you to play, we pay you to win'," smh.com.au quoted Smith as saying. "For me that was a little bit disappointing. We don't go out there to try to lose games of cricket, we go out there to try and win and play the best way we can," he added. Incidentally, team-performance boss Howard was one half of CA's investigation team that grilled Smith and other players in the aftermath of the sandpaper scandal. Recalling the phase Smith said, "The first week or so after everything went down in South Africa, that was really tough," he said, adding, "I was pretty much curled up in a ball and in tears for a lot of it. I was struggling mentally." However, things are looking up for Smith and fellow teammate David Warner as Cricket Australia CEO Kevin Roberts revealed that discussions regarding Steve Smith and David Warner’s return to the national team have already begun.
