According to Surrey head coach Michael Di Venuto, it would be mad not to sign either of the two prolific Australian batsmen—David Warner and Steve Smith if they are allowed to play for the county side. He also mentioned that the mental state of the players along ECB's go-ahead is the key to roping them in.

“From an Australian perspective, it is probably important that they play a bit of cricket at some stage,” Di Venuto said. “I don't know if they are allowed to play in this competition. I know what it states in their sanctions that they can't play domestic cricket in Australia.

“If they are in the right mental state to play cricket and the ECB will have to allow it to start with, then we'd be mad not to look at some of the world's best players potentially playing.”

Smith and Warner have been banned by Cricket Australia for a year but are allowed to play premiere cricket and will have to undertake 100 hours of voluntary service in community cricket. However, their ban is restricted to Australia itself and they are allowed to play in England.

Both of them have lost their IPL contracts after the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa during the third Test last month. The other counterpart of the disgraceful trio—Cameron Bancroft had his deal with Somerset scrapped as well.

Di Venuto had previously worked with the duo during his stint with Australia as a batting coach from 2013 to 2016. He also served as an interim coach when former Australia coach, Darren Lehmann, was unavailable due to illness.

Surrey signed Mitchell Marsh as their overseas selection but the all-rounder underwent surgery on his ankle following Australia’s tour of South Africa where the sandpaper-gate took place. 

The club then approached Proteas batsman Dean Elgar who will be playing for the first two months of the season. They also roped in Morne Morkel on a two-year Kolpak deal.