A wave of sympathy for disgraced Australia skipper Steve Smith gathered pace on Friday after his heart-wrenching apology and opposition grew to the severity of bans handed out in a ball-tampering scandal.

Smith’s tearful appearance in front of media helped trigger the resignation of coach Darren Lehmann and also prompted calls to rein in criticism which has verged on hysterical during an extraordinary week for Australian cricket.

Both Smith and vice-captain David Warner were banned for 12 months and Cameron Bancroft for nine months for ball-tampering during the third Test in Cape Town.

Lehmann – who had earlier warned about the players’ mental state – said he was convinced to step down by the emotional apologies of Bancroft and Smith, which also drew messages of support.

And again, there was not much support for Warner.

Here is how the media in Australia, the United Kingdom and India reacted.

Australia

The Australian media was largely supportive of Smith. Newspapers in the country splashed images of a crying Smith along with quotes from his press conference.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s cricket writer Andrew Webster was convinced that this was not a staged apology. “No spin. This was real,” he wrote.

Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, below its headline “Crying shame”, wrote that the “remorseful Smith and Bancroft win back Aussie fans” with their apologies.

Melbourne’s The Age also had Smith’s photo on its front page with the headline “Gutted”, quoting the 28-year-old. The Age also had another story titled, “Used and abused, David Warner was attack dog for a team out of control”.

The UK

The British press – unsurprisingly – was not so sparing of the shamed Australian cricketers even though former England cricketers such as Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen expressed sympathy for Smith and Bancroft on Twitter.

The ball-tampering scandal has unleashed a torrent of vitriol against Smith and Warner in particular, and heavy criticism of a team long perceived as arrogant and out of touch.

Quite a few British publications took pot-shots at the crying former Australia captain – with one newspaper’s reporter even calling it “a bleakly hilarious saga”.

UK’s Daily Mail scoffed at Smith’s tearful apology with a headline that read “Captain Cry Baby”.

Former England cricketer and coach David Lloyd even wrote a column in the Mail in which he said that he had “no sympathy” for those involved in the ball-tampering scandal and the Australians’ “bad behaviour” has been an “accident waiting to happen”.

The Mail’s cricket writer asked in another column whether Smith was “crying crocodile tears or was it genuine remorse?”

The Independent ran with the headline “Tears, lies, & goodbyes”, with its reporter Jonathan Liew writing that “cricket itself is to blame for Australia’s bleakly hilarious saga”.

“And yet something extremely funny can simultaneously be extremely serious,” he added.

The Cricket Paper’s headline also seemed to be mocking Smith...

...as did The Daily Star’s...

The Guardian and The Telegraph were far more sparing of the Australia captain...

...as was The Times, which ran with a headline: “Dear Australia, that’s enough now”. It added, “This was ball-tampering, not murder.”

India

Indian newspapers chose to go with a balanced approach with most publications just reporting the bare facts using agency reports.

With inputs from AFP