South Africa and Australia kick off their three-Test series at Kingsmead on Friday. This is Australia’s first Test visit to South Africa since the infamous, sandpapergate series in 2018. To jog one’s memory, what happened at Newlands was this: Cameron Bancroft, in complicity with captain Steve Smith and David Warner, used sandpaper secretly to tamper with the ball to be able to assist pacers with reverse swing.
With the first Test set to begin tomorrow, the sandpapergate is being discussed at length all over the global media. Alvin Naicker, the man in charge that day of SuperSport’s live coverage, reveals to BBC Sport, that catching Bancroft in the act was accidental. His team was doing its regular work, just when it was discovered, to their utter shock, what was happening on the field of play.
“The way the Australians were caught was an absolute fluke,” Naicker said. “No one mentioned anything to me. The first Test in Durban spiralled out of control in terms of behaviour, then in Port Elizabeth for the second Test, there were still some fireworks going on. We still didn’t understand.
“The ball went to the wicketkeeper, then to Bancroft, and he was shining the ball. First, it was on his pants, then the next ball, the cameraman happened to stay on Bancroft because he was not shining the ball on his pants, but he was rubbing the ball on his palm.
“When he threw the ball on, he put his hand in his pocket. The cameraman – and these are big, big lens cameras – he zoomed into his pocket. The slow-mo operator looked at it, spooled it back and forth, then zoomed in and could see the yellow spot.”
The big aid!
The operator of the Newlands’ big screen also aided the catch. How? “They take a feed from broadcast but they also have to insert their own graphics and commercialisation. Between deliveries they tend to stay with live play, then at the end of the over, they go to their commercials or whatever in the stadium. It was quite fortunate that when we showed it, it was in between deliveries, not at the end of the over.
“When Bancroft looked up at the screen and saw it, he removed it and put it in his jocks. The cameraman recorded it. It still wasn’t live, we played a replay,” Naicker said.
With that, the Aussie offender was caught. What followed was varying bans for all three. Smith cried on TV. Later stripped of captaincy. The controversy hasn’t died down, frankly. Many a time since the Aussie team has been booed and heckled, including at the 2019 World Cup in England. During an India-Australia game, Virat had to come to Smith’s aid after the spectators went relentlessly after him.
If truth be told, expect Kingsmead spectators to behave pretty much the same way. Believe it or not, the next few weeks are going to be pretty good for Test cricket as two of the finest sides take on each other with the sandpapergate sticking out like a sore thumb in the background.
