Former South Africa captain Faf Du Plessis says it was the Proteas themselves who sounded the alarm on Australia during the infamous ball-tampering saga of 2018.
Ahead of Australia’s first Test in Cape Town since Sandpapergate, Du Plessis has revealed his side alerted broadcaster Super Sport when they suspected the tourists of tampering with the ball.
Cameron Bancroft was infamously caught with sandpaper in his trousers during the third Test of the series at Newlands, which he was using to rough one side of the ball up, for which he, skipper Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner all received bans.
To this day, the saga remains largely shrouded in mystery over who knew, how many people were really involved, and which players escaped blame.
Speaking to The Grade Cricketer ahead of this week’s third and deciding Test between the two nations, Du Plessis said they smelt something fishy at the time and started watching the Aussies closely.
“There’s a lot said that’s known and there’s a lot of stuff that you don’t know. Maybe you know — we can talk about it off-air,” Du Plessis said.
“I can tell you we thought that it was happening in the first Test because we were like, ‘This is ridiculous’.
“I’ll tell you the edited version, which was just the ball was reversing and we were like, ‘Let’s get some binoculars and let’s just see who’s getting the ball at least’, and we were just following the ball.
The Proteas champion said initially they just wanted to take notes on how Aussie bowlers like Mitchell Starc were getting so much reverse swing.
“For us, honestly, reverse swing was part of the game, so you know that there are many ways in trying to reverse swing a ball, but you are actually trying to learn,” Du Plessis said.
“You’re trying to see, like, ‘What are these guys doing? Is there something we can do here?’ Because the ability to have the ball reverse swing is an art of Test cricket and it’s one of the beset things about Test cricket.
“Because you have a green pitch on day one where the ball’s swinging through the air, day two and three generally it’s good batting conditions, day four and five spin and reverse swing.
“So we love the fact that the ball reverse swings. I mean, as a batter, it’s the hardest thing to face, so it’s great for batters that it’s not part of the game (anymore). But it’s a beautiful art, and seeing someone like a Dale Steyn running in with a reverse-swinging ball, I mean, how beautiful? Starc was a jet with a reverse-swinging ball, and in the first Test he blew us away.”
Once they worked out something wasn’t right, Du Plessis says they sent a “memo” to Super Sport.
“There were two things: we were like, follow the ball, firstly. And it was always going to one guy at mid-off, always to the same guy. And we were like, ‘OK, so there’s something happening there’. Obviously we don’t know, but it’s just like, follow the ball,” he said.
“And the second thing was, OK, Starc was reverse-swinging the ball so much, so, technically and tactically, what can we do to counter this? Because now we have to look inwardly on how we are going to problem-solve what’s in front of us.
“And then second Test we went to PE (Port Elizabeth, now known as Gqeberha), and the memo was: follow the ball, just follow the ball, to Super Sport. And that’s what they did; they followed the ball, followed the ball, and they could see that it was still going to someone at mid-off all the time.
“Then after tea there was a lot of tape on the fingers and now there was obviously cameras on one guy. I think what happened was, possibly after that game, he would’ve been like, ‘Look, the camera’s on me, so someone else needs to step up’.”
Du Plessis himself was twice cited for ball-tampering infringements during his decorated career.
In 2013, he cost his side five penalty runs was fined 50 per cent of his match fee after pleading guilty to using the zipper on his trousers to tamper with the ball.
Then again in 2016, the former Proteas skipper was cited for using a mint lolly to get sugar into his saliva which he then used to shine the ball during — ironically against Australia.
“I feel for Cameron Bancroft because I went through the exact same thing in my Test career earlier on,” he said.
“We went to Pakistan, I think I’d played five Test matches, (and) at that stage, you would do anything just to be a part of the Test team and just be one of the boys.
“At that stage, we played with zips on our pants, and what we do as cricketers, you try to use your nails to scratch the ball, and I was like, I’ll try, but my nail broke, and I was like, ‘Guys, I’ve got way too much cream I’ve put on my hands, my nails are soft, it’s not going to work’.
“So I’m like, ‘OK, but what else? How do you do this? Oh, there’s a zip, let me try and (use that)‘. As I’m doing it, I’m hearing it, and as I look up, I’m going, ‘Oh my dear’, and it’s on the big screen, the same thing (as Bancroft), that exact same thing.”
Since Sandpapergate in 2018, reverse swing has largely faded out of the game, with countries all around the world struggling to get old balls to reverse, even in favourable conditions.
Du Plessis said it’s no coincidence.
“It changed reverse swing. It was basically a line-in-the-sand moment for everyone in the future that was looking at that ball going, ‘Should I? No, absolutely not’,” he said.
“It’s not just that; even bouncing the ball in. It used to be OK just to bounce the ball in all the time, within the laws of the game, rough the side up.
“At one stage, you could even look at the ball, turn it around in your hand, throw it, bounce it on the roughest part of the pitch where the game was played the day before and it was like rocks in the crease.
“And then it got to the point where you couldn’t look at the ball anymore and then you couldn’t bounce in the ball anymore. Everything in that aspect has just changed.”
Smith defended Du Plessis after his mint incident in 2016, saying the South Africa batter had done nothing wrong.
Du Plessis returned the favour for Smith, Warner and Bancroft when asked about Sandpapergate in 2018, and doubled down again this week.
“I do want to stand up for the guy,” he said of Bancroft.
“It happened before them all over the world. It was a normal thing that happened in cricket.
“And now, if it’s reverse-swinging, it’s maybe doing a little bit both ways. But if you compare Durban now to Durban in 2018 — go pull those images up of the amount the ball reverse-swung.”