Former Australia captain Tim Paine, who took over the leadership role from Steve Smith in the aftermath of the scandalous 2018 Cape Town Test ball-tampering scandal, has now accused the South African team of doing the same in the following Test match in his book.
Then captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner were slapped with a one-year international ban while Cameron Bancroft was suspended for nine months by Cricket Australia for their role in the scandal. It also prompted a cultural review of Australian cricket. Tim Paine was named the Australian Test captain in the aftermath.
However, Paine claimed in his new book ‘Tim Paine: The Paid Price’, that the Proteas indulged in ball tampering in the fourth Test at New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg.
“I saw it happen in the fourth Test of that series. 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,” Paine wrote in his book.
Paine was part of the Australian playing XI in the Cape Town Test and then captained the side in the Johannesburg Test, which was the fourth and last match of the series.
“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,” Paine said.
Paine also wrote that he didn’t believe what he saw on TV during the sandpaper gate and denied the speculation that the dressing room was aware of the plan (of the sandpaper-gate scandal).
“Cricketers keep a lot to themselves, even in the happiest teams. Coaches and support staff do the same. Everyone out there was shocked when they looked up on the big screen and saw Cameron Bancroft with a piece of sandpaper in his hand. I was stunned. We all were,” Paine further wrote.
The 37-year-old said that ball-tampering was commonplace in cricket adding that he had seen players “taping small pieces of sandpaper onto their fingers” in the past. He also felt that the Australian team should’ve supported Smith, Warner, and Bancroft more.
“Steve and Cam were alone. Things were tense and horrible. I think Davey felt abandoned and that nobody was looking out for him. Everyone was a part of it to some degree — would it have worked out better for those three players if we had owned it as a team? I think it would have.
On reflection all three of them should have had more support. Maybe we could have done more as a group or organisation, not enough people put themselves in their shoes,” he wrote.
(PTI inputs)
