Steve Smith, David Warner to be given fast-track at Home Affairs to become South Africans

Following the recent scandal around ball tampering involving the disgraced former captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner of Australia, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba announced on Sunday that both batsmen had applied to become South Africans and he would fast-track their applications personally.

The minister said that, given his history with characters like the Guptas, assisting the controversial sportsmen in this way was only logical and consistent with his record as a public official.

Malusi Gigaba, pictured in April 2017.

“These gentleman are awesomely talented and, since Australia doesn’t want them to play for them any more, they would be a great asset to local cricket here in South Africa, especially since Hashim Amla hasn’t made a century for quite some time. It would be great to see Warner opening the batting for South Africa at the upcoming World Cup,” he said, reading from a Sahara Computers laptop that promptly stopped working.

Shortly after showing the press gathered at a media briefing in Pretoria his unbelievably high Candy Crush score, he continued reading off his iPad.

“It’s high time that South Africa stops exporting all our players to all these other countries and helping them to win World Cups. Now is the time to break the trend and involve people who know how to win, no matter what.

“Smith and Warner have higher-grade understanding of what it takes to conquer the opposition – for example, here in South Africa we don’t know what roughness of sandpaper to buy at Builders Warehouse in order to ensure optimal performance. This is the kind of know-how that only these Australians will be able to teach us.

“Furthermore, Warner and Smith owe it to South Africa to make amends. This is the best thing I can imagine for all concerned, given the circumstances.”

When contacted for comment, both Warner and Smith expressed dismay at the prospect that they might become Proteas, but were grateful for the opportunity to keep experimenting in real-world situations with the atmospheric physics of Kookaburras.

April Fool’s! Obviously.