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Cape Town - The international bans for Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft will hit the players the hardest when they watch the national team play at home this summer, according to former captain Mark Taylor.
All three players were suspended by Cricket Australia for the ball-tampering scandal at Newlands in March with Smith and Warner receiving one-year bans and Bancroft nine months.
Smith and Warner made their comeback to the field in the Canada Global T20 this week while Bancroft played in a local tournament in Australia.
Taylor, who is now a Cricket Australia board director, feels the full ramifications of the ban will only hit home for the three players when they have to watch their teammates in front of their own fans later this year.
The former Australia skipper told Channel Nine: "The next nine months are going to be extremely tough for him [Smith], for David Warner and for Cameron Bancroft, because they're going to have to watch more of the Australian side right through the summer, here in Australia.
"That will really hurt. It hurt Steve Smith watching them play in England and lose, when they [the team] are playing in Australia it's going to be really tough for them [the banned trio] when they're not playing.
"But in the long run I think it's good for all three of them. He made a bad mistake, as did the other two guys, three or four months ago, and he's paying a very high price for it.
"I think the penalty they've received is very harsh but very fair, and I think we've now set a tone for world cricket that we're not going to allow this sort of cheating to go on."
Australia play India in a four-match Test during December and January and then Sri Lanka make the trip Down Under for another two Tests.
