There have been reports of Cricket Australia considering lessening the sanctions they placed on David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft following the ball-tampering saga.

While Warner and Smith were handed yearlong bans, respectively, Bancroft was inflicted with a 9-month suspension. And now, CA confirmed that they have no plans to ease the sanctions on the trio following rumours of relaxed bans to allow them to play in the domestic first-class of Australia in a bid to be prepared for the World Cup.

“At no stage have we, or are we considering lessening the current sanctions in place for respective players in relation to the incident in South Africa,” a spokesperson from CA told cricket.com.au.

The spokesperson also affirmed that the Code of Conduct of CA doesn’t let sanctions be relaxed if the players have acknowledged the charges.

“The CA Code of Conduct does not allow for reversal or lessening of sanctions once players have fully accepted the charges. The current articles published are purely speculative.”

While this might be a bad news for the trio, David Warner and Steve Smith have already made their cricketing comeback by playing in the Global T20 Canada League. They are set to play more domestic T20 cricket up until next year and will hope that it would suffice for them to be prepared for the World Cup.