10-25-2022, 12:23 AM
Tim Paine has accused South Africa of ball tampering in the Test match immediately after Australian cricket was rocked by the sandpaper-gate scandal, claiming the act was covered up by match broadcasters.
In a lengthy chapter on the 2018 tour, Paine went to great lengths to point out that ball tampering was commonplace in cricket and that it was the sport's dirty little secret. Faf du Plessis, who was South Africa captain at the time, makes similar claims in his upcoming book.
Regardless, he says he was left furious when he spotted South Africa allegedly pulling apart the seam of the ball in the following Test.
"I saw it happen in the fourth Test of that series," Paine wrote. "Think about that. After everything that had happened in Cape Town, after all the headlines and bans and carry on.
"I was standing at the bowlers' end in the next Test when a shot came up on the screen of a South African player at mid-off having a huge crack at the ball.
"The television director, who had played an active role in catching out Cam, immediately pulled the shot off the screen. We went to the umpires about it, which might seem a bit poor, but we'd been slaughtered and were convinced they'd been up to it since the first Test. But the footage got lost. As it would."
Meanwhile, du Plessis has said that South Africa were suspicious that Australia were tampering with the ball earlier in the series before the controversy erupted at Newlands, specifically referencing how much reverse swing there was in the opening match in Durban, referencing "borderline unplayable" deliveries from Mitchell Starc.
"We suspected that someone had been nurturing the ball too much to get it to reverse so wildly, and we watched the second Test at St George's through binoculars, so that we could follow the ball more closely while Australia was fielding," he writes in Faf: Through Fire.
"When we noticed that the ball was going to David Warner quite often - our changing room must have looked like a birdwatching hide as we peered intently through our binoculars."
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/tim-paine-south-africa-engaged-in-ball-tampering-after-newlands-test-1341539
In a lengthy chapter on the 2018 tour, Paine went to great lengths to point out that ball tampering was commonplace in cricket and that it was the sport's dirty little secret. Faf du Plessis, who was South Africa captain at the time, makes similar claims in his upcoming book.
Regardless, he says he was left furious when he spotted South Africa allegedly pulling apart the seam of the ball in the following Test.
"I saw it happen in the fourth Test of that series," Paine wrote. "Think about that. After everything that had happened in Cape Town, after all the headlines and bans and carry on.
"I was standing at the bowlers' end in the next Test when a shot came up on the screen of a South African player at mid-off having a huge crack at the ball.
"The television director, who had played an active role in catching out Cam, immediately pulled the shot off the screen. We went to the umpires about it, which might seem a bit poor, but we'd been slaughtered and were convinced they'd been up to it since the first Test. But the footage got lost. As it would."
Meanwhile, du Plessis has said that South Africa were suspicious that Australia were tampering with the ball earlier in the series before the controversy erupted at Newlands, specifically referencing how much reverse swing there was in the opening match in Durban, referencing "borderline unplayable" deliveries from Mitchell Starc.
"We suspected that someone had been nurturing the ball too much to get it to reverse so wildly, and we watched the second Test at St George's through binoculars, so that we could follow the ball more closely while Australia was fielding," he writes in Faf: Through Fire.
"When we noticed that the ball was going to David Warner quite often - our changing room must have looked like a birdwatching hide as we peered intently through our binoculars."
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/tim-paine-south-africa-engaged-in-ball-tampering-after-newlands-test-1341539