Cricket Australia is coming under fire for failing to take immediate action against Steve Smith after he confessed the team management decided to cheat by tampering with the ball in the third test against South Africa.

The governing body said instead it would conduct an investigation into the Cape Town scandal, which has prompted calls for Smith to step down.

Australian cricket was landed in its biggest crisis for years when Cameron Bancroft was caught by television cameras trying to scuff up the ball with tape. He hid the tape down his trousers when questioned by the umpires, who did not change the ball. But in an extraordinary end-of-play press conference Bancroft admitted ball-tampering and Smith revealed it was the idea of the team management during the lunch break.

“The leadership group knew about it. We spoke about it (ball-tampering) at lunch. I am not proud of what has happened. It is not in the spirit of the game, not in line with my integrity, the team’s integrity. The leadership group’s integrity has come into question and rightly so. It is not on. It won’t happen again under my leadership I can promise you that,” said Smith.

“We saw this game as such an important game. We have seen the ball reversing quite a lot throughout this series and our ball just did not look like it was going to go. That is a mistake on our behalf again. It is such poor actions and deeply regrettable.