Australian cricketer Steve Smith has said he was ‘thrown to the wolves’ following the Sandpapergate scandal in 2018 and that those events have left him traumatised.Smith was banned from all cricket for 12 months for ball-tampering offences during a Test series against South Africa in Cape Town eight years ago, while also being stripped of the captaincy.Retired Aussie batter David Warner received the same punishment, while former opener Cameron Bancroft received a nine-month ban for being involved in the scandal.Australia are set for their first Test series back in South Africa since the controversy occurred, with Smith, who has worked his way back into a leadership role as vice-captain, involved in the squad.And with the first Test in Durban starting in three weeks, Smith has opened up on how the aftermath of the scandal has psychologically affected him.’I’m not a big fan of cameras; I get anxious around cameras,’ Smith told News Corp. ‘That was a traumatic experience in my life and when I hear the flash of a camera it makes me revisit that, in a way.’ Steve Smith has said he has been left traumatised by the Sandpaper gate scandal in 2018When Smith was returning from South Africa following the scandal, he was greeted by a whole horde of media at both Johannesburg and Sydney airports. This experience still haunts him to this day.He added: ‘The 24-48 hours after being told by [former Cricket Australia chief executive] James Sutherland that I was getting banned for a year, going through the airport in Johannesburg getting absolutely mobbed, and then flying back and doing that press conference… I still have little flashbacks here and there of it.’I felt like I was kind of thrown to the wolves through [Johannesburg] airport. I didn’t have any support there at all. It was certainly a difficult period, particularly the initial few days after. The mental state I was in was not great.’That’s somewhere I’d like not to get to again, but I certainly learned from that and have been able to move forward with my life.’I’ve tried to kind of erase a lot of 2018 and what happened,’ he added. ‘I can’t remember a lot about the series. I’ve tried to block most of it out of my memory bank.’Smith has been constantly mocked by fans of England and other nations during the years following the controversy, and is not concerned if he gets a similar reception in South Africa.’It’s something I’m kind of used to,’ Smith said. ‘I’ve copped a lot at times away from home, at different venues across my career, and it’s something that I take in my own stride.’I use it as motivation to try and go out and do well, and try and take a positive from it.’