As Steve Smith breaks down here are sport's 10 most famous on-camera criers

Steve Smith broken down in tears on Thursday morning as he apologies for his part in Australia’s ball-tampering scandal.

The Australian captain has been banned and stripped of the captaincy after being part of a leadership group that instructed team-mates to rub cricket balls with sandpaper during the third test with India last week.

Young opener Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera tampering with the balls and he and Smith have both also been told they would not be picked for captaincy until a minimum of 12 months by Cricket Australia. Bancroft has also been banned from the sport for nine months while Smith and vice-captain David Warner have been banned for a year.

READ MORE: Apologetic Warner takes full responsibility for ball-tampering shame

READ MORE: Smith, Warner banned for 12 months by Cricket Australia

READ MORE: Cricket – Gibson: Desperation may have influenced Australia’s ball-tampering

“I’m deeply sorry. I love the game of cricket. I love entertaining young kids … I just want to say sorry for the pain I’ve brought to Australia, to the fans and the public,” Smith said through tears at a press conference on Thursday.

“I take full responsibility … There was a failure of leadership, of my leadership. I’ll do everything I can to make up for my mistake and the damage it’s caused.”

“If any good can come of this, if there can be a lesson to others then I hope I can be a force for change. I know I’ll regret this for the rest of my life. I’m absolutely gutted. I hope in time I can earn back respect and forgiveness,” Smith said.

“Cricket is the greatest sport in the world. It’s been my life and I hope it can be again. I’m sorry and I’m absolutely devastated.”

“I don’t blame anyone. I’m the captain of the Australian team. It’s on my watch and I take responsibility for what happened last Saturday.”

But he isn’t the first sportsperson to break down in tears and he certainly won’t be the last. Here are 10 more athletes who couldn’t fight back the tears.

Kim Hughes

Another Australian captain who couldn’t hold back the tears as he lost the captaincy. This wasn’t due to any ball-tampering though, Hughes was voluntarily stepping down after two capitulation against the West Indies in two years with a rubbish side, a lack of support from the board and some savage beatings in the media, Hughes decided to step down.

But halfway through reading a pre-written statement in a post-match press conference after another Test defeat to the West Indies it all became too much, the tears started rolling and he had to hand his statement to Australian manager Bob Merriman and leave.

“When I sat there in the press conference I just couldn’t stop myself,” Hughes reflected years later. “It was an emotional thing to do and I don’t regret doing it. There was no media manager as well at that time; you had to fend for yourself.”

Jana Novotna

The Czech tennis player became a bit of a national treasure in the UK when she wept on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent after the 1993 Wimbledon final. The Duchess comforted the 24-year-old

Novotna after she bottled the final against Stefi Graf and it was just all too much for me. “Don’t worry, you’ll win this one day,” said the Duchess, in a rare show of emotion from a royal. And she was right as Novotna persisted and finally won Wimbledon five years later to become the oldest first-time Grand Slam singles winner in the Open Era at the time at age 29 years and nine months.

The hugely talented Novotna sadly passed away from cancer in November last year but will always be remembered as a crowd favourite in SW19.

Andy Murray

Tears at Wimbledon aren’t exactly rare but Andy Murray’s after losing the 2012 final to Roger Federer showed a side of him most didn’t know existed; AKA human emotions.

“People didn’t laugh or think less of me, it was the opposite,” he said a few years later. “It felt like they respected me more. They respected me for letting off the pressure cooker of emotion and for letting the mask slip.

“Sadly, many men don’t feel they can let the mask slip. Many men express their stresses and emotions in self-destructive and sometimes life-ending ways. They build up emotion and don’t have the tools to deal with what’s going on in their lives.”

He has since gone on to win pretty much everything so cry away, Andy mate…

Paul Gascoigne

No list of crying sportsman is complete with Gazza’s tears in Italia 1990. The famously emotional footballer didn’t just cry once, he let it all out.

The tears started coming when he was booked for a silly lunge, a caution which meant he would miss the final if England did progress past the Germans in the semi-final.

And then come the end of the penalty shoot-out which they of course lost, more tears started flowing. He was consoled by his team-mates, opponents and manager Bobby Robson, which you can watch below and will make you love Sir Bobby even more.

Nancy Kerrigan

If only the cameraman who was recording the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit in January 1994 had followed ice-skater Kerrigan down the hallway as she left the ice. He may have recorded one of the most famous attacks in sport, or maybe even prevented it.

Instead the 24-year-old was bludgeoned by a police baton being held by an associate of her skating rival Tonya Harding. The cameraman, caught the aftermath and video of Kerrigan crying “Why? Why?” went global.

Thankfully she recovered enough to compete in the 1994 Winter Olympics seven weeks later where she won silver while Harding was given a $100,000 fine and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service, and was given a $100,000 fine after pleading guilty to conspiring to hinder the prosecution.

Lawrence Dallaglio

God Save The Queen is not a brilliant national anthem but Lawrence Dallaglio loves it. He sings it to get to sleep and he definitely has it as his ringtone (probably).

He loves it so much he cries when he is signing it and that’s exactly what happened before England’s Rugby World Cup semi-final against France in 2003.

They went on to win, of course, and in the final so no doubt memories of that World Cup bring Dallaglio tears of joy when he goes back over it.

Luis Suarez

Footballers are allowed to be a bit more emotional that rugby players for some reason. Unless your name is Luis Suarez.

By May 2014 the Uruguayan was already a hate figure in the Premier League after biting Branislav Ivanovic and racially abusing Patrice Evra.

So seeing him in tears, led away by his personal bouncer Steven Gerrard after Liverpool had thrown away not just a three goal lead at Crystal Palace in front of millions but also the Premier League title is one of those moments in English football that brought everyone together…except Liverpool fans of course.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Another hated footballer whose tears united a nation. In 2004, Ronaldo was a petulant young winger at Manchester United who had riled the English by playing a part in Wayne Rooney getting sent off in the Euro 2004 quarter-finals and then winking at the bench. He was public enemy no.1.

So to see him balling his eyes out after Greece’s shock win in the final against the hosts was schadenfreude of the highest order for most English football fans, probably even Manchester United ones at the time too as he wasn’t anywhere near as good as he is now.

John Terry

One word; karma.

Michael Jordan

Finally, we have the man who cried so hard he became a meme.

Basketball (and crucially not baseball) legend Michael Jordan cried many, many times during his 2009 induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame and his tears have been forever immortalised into a meme that millennials now use to express sadness during sporting events.

It turns out, though, that Jordan is not a fan of the meme. While speaking with TMZ about Charles Barkley, former team-mate Charles Oakley was questioned about the world’s most beloved viral crying face.

“It is what it is,” Oakley started. “One of the greatest players of all players, or all-time … people like seeing that. They keep doing it.” Then, he told the cameraman that Jordan doesn’t care for the meme. “No, he don’t like it. Nah.” Yeesh.