Make no mistake, it is the biggest firestorm confronting an Australian captain since Greg Chappell told his brother Trevor to bowl underarm against New Zealand in 1981. Smith will do well to survive it.
Bancroft will be punished by the International Cricket Council – he has accepted a charge and may well be suspended from the fourth Test next week – but responsibility runs well beyond the West Australian opener, playing in only his eighth Test.
Cameron Bancroft has been charged with ball tampering.
An apologetic Smith owned up to being behind the ploy, along with other senior players. He wouldn't name the co-conspirators but in the past others in the so-called leadership group have included vice-captain David Warner, fast bowlers Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon.
Cricket Australia will surely take their own action – and it may not be limited to the players.
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"This is a bad look for Australian cricket," said Allan Border on the SuperSport commentary. "Certainly, it will go all the way through to Cricket Australia. The directors will get involved. It's that serious."
Cricket Australia chairman David Peever is on his way back from Cape Town after taking in some of the match. There will be hell to pay when he touches down.
What took place at the foot of Table Mountain was dumb and deplorable in equal measure.
The dumb first. There are 30 broadcast cameras watching the players' every move here, when they're not zeroing in on women in the crowd, as they tend to do in these parts.
It was not the match officials who discovered Bancroft trying to rough up one side of the ball, and then attempting to disguise the whole thing by putting the tape down his pants. The whole episode was beamed around the world, accompanied by the disbelieving remarks of commentators.
Bancroft was seen to hide the object down the front of his underpants before walking over to the umpires.
Photo: AP
How did they think they could get away with it?
Then there is the deplorable. Questions must go right to the top about the whole team's culture when such a plan can be devised on the hop and there is no one around to put a stop to it.
The culture of the team is Smith's domain, but also that of coach Darren Lehmann, even if the captain insists that he wasn't involved.
The Australian team's image, at home and abroad, has taken a battering as a result of displeasure about how they carry themselves on the field, with sledging and the rest. But while they can make an argument that the banter is part of the game, the same can't be said for premeditated cheating.
Steve Smith should have known better.
Photo: AP
Whatever sympathy they had over the disgraceful taunts about players' wives and partners that have been emanating from members of the crowd here has gone out the window.
The reason the Ausralians turned to such under-handed tactics was because there hadn't been as much reverse swing available to Australian the bowlers as they would have liked with a square that is much more green than in Port Elizabeth and Durban. And with South Africa so far ahead in the game, they were desperate for the ball to do something to assist their endeavours.
After they were sprung, Smith spent as long as 30 minutes off the field in the afternoon, to the point where Warner, taking charge, had to make a call to review an umpire's decision.
Later, the Australian team cancelled their usual post-play radio and television interviews on Saturday and it was not until an hour after the close that Smith and Bancroft made their way across the field from the dressing room to front a press conference high in the North Stand.
The last time that pair sat alongside each other in such a setting, in Brisbane last summer, they were able to sit around laughing, as Bancroft relayed his side of Jonny Bairstow's so-called headbutting of him in a Perth nightclub.
Both were ashen-faced on Saturday. In the case of Bancroft, who has taken over ball-shining duties from Warner, it seemed to be a case of a newish member of the team getting himself in too deep.
In the case of Smith, he should have known better. He is a good man but his fierce competitive streak, and those of other senior players, has led him to take a step way too far. He said afterwards that even if Bancroft had not have been caught he would have been stuck with a guilty conscience.
The mistake may cost him very dearly.
And whatever happens to Smith, or anybody else in the Australian set-up, it will be something the Australian team has to live with for a long time.
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Chris Barrett is a Sports Writer with The Sydney Morning Herald.
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