With Australia’s loss in the Gavaskar-Border series complete, the post-mortem on what went wrong has already begun.
Though any series loss occurs due to a multitude of reasons, the fact Australia were missing their two best batsmen and their quicks couldn’t get the ball to reverse swing were both highlighted as major reasons why India will leave our shores with a Test series win for the first time ever.
It doesn’t take a lot of effort to combine those two facts into a narrative and, like most discussions that involve the baggy green these days, it inevitably leads back to the black cloud that still hovers above Australian cricket.
Additionally, reading between the lines of numerous opinions and columns from over the summer, it’s fairly evident the full story is yet to be told from the scandal that was dubbed – rather unoriginally – sandpaper-gate.
Courtesy of the Cricket Australia investigation and the subsequently released report, along with a couple of ill-advised interviews during the Boxing Day Test, the rough outline of what occurred on that fateful day of March 24th, 2018, in Cape Town is common and confirmed knowledge, and doesn’t need to be rehashed here.
Steve Smith reacts during the press conference. (AAP Image/Brendan Esposito)
Whether it’s a case of being fed up with the whole story, or via a desire to move on, or perhaps even a fear of what else may be discovered, many would like the story to end there.
However, it’s quite clear that it doesn’t.
Though I don’t begrudge anyone not wanting to talk about the ball-tampering scandal anymore, unfortunately for them, not everyone is ready to move on, and there are two factors which prevent many from being able to do so.
The first is the number of cricket media personalities and journalists – especially veteran writer Robert ‘Crash’ Craddock – who have consistently put forward the opinion that David Warner hasn’t quite revealed everything.
On numerous occasions, Craddock has alluded to the notion that the suspended opener ‘knows where the bodies are buried’, and that his silence is protecting a number of people.
Soon after the incidents in Cape Town, Craddock labelled Warner “the most feared cricketer in the world . . . carrying a weapon of mass destruction: his tongue.” Others have stated that Cricket Australia remain nervous that Warner could come clean and tell the ‘full story’.
Where there is smoke there is fire, and the number of respected and well-connected cricket journalists that continue to tell us that all has not been revealed yet leads many to believe just that: it hasn’t.
The other factor that needs to be discussed is the inability of the Australian Test team to get reverse swing of late, something that was a considerable factor in the Ashes victory 12 months ago.
During this Indian series, there was plenty of talk about Australia’s inability to generate reverse swing, and fast bowler Pat Cummins admitted that this exact topic was discussed by the team before the New Year Test in Sydney.
Pat Cummins (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Cummins’ admission opened the door for people to join the dots and come to the conclusion that Australia can’t get the ball to reverse swing simply because they’re not cheating anymore.
That analysis may be a little over-simplistic, but you can easily understand people’s thought process. Sadly, you do lose the benefit of the doubt with many, once you’ve been caught cheating.
You can also understand why Australia would be a little gun-shy in attempting any type of ball manipulation, even of the legal variety.
At this point, I’d like to point out that there are a host of things you can do to a ball that are legal or semi-legal. Or even illegal, but not as blatant as using sandpaper on it.
England infamously used Murray mints to shine the ball in the 2005 Ashes series. Teams have consistently been warned for throwing the ball back on the bounce to the keeper to rough it up. Other individuals have been caught putting dirt on the ball, or using their pant zipper to scuff the ball.
Fact is, if you really want to do something to the ball, you can.
You can ‘accidently’ use sunscreen or lip balm to make one side smooth. You can ‘accidently’ step on the ball with your spikes while retrieving the ball from the gutter boundary. Even super coarse bandaging can be used to rough a ball, and if you have an injured thumb or hand, that bandaging would be legal to wear.
All of those examples, and more, may be used by teams to alter the condition of the ball. They’ve also been going on for decades and are tough for an umpire to be across.
Given everything that has been pointed out above, I have a theory on what happened with the Australian cricket team. I have zero evidence of what I’m about to lay out; it’s just a hunch based on intuition, playing cricket for a long time, and following cricket for even longer.
Succinctly, my theory is such: Australia had been doing something to alter the condition of the ball for a while, likely just within the confines of the rules, and everyone knew about it.
However, what happened in South Africa was outright cheating, and using sandpaper was the first time Australia had done that particular act. This is easily evidenced by how amateur they were at executing it.
This is a theory backed up by England paceman Stuart Broad, who appeared somewhat genuine in asking why Australia would change whatever worked for them in the Ashes series.
“I saw Steve in his press conference say it’s the first time they tried it, which seems really surprising, why they’d change a method that was working,” Broad said at the time.
“You look at the Ashes series we just played, you look through all those Tests and they reverse swung the ball, sometimes in conditions you wouldn’t expect.
“I don’t understand why they’ve changed their method for this one game.”
Regardless, it’s bleedingly obvious not everyone in the Australian team would have been comfortable with using sandpaper. It’s blatant and unambiguous in the extreme, as opposed to something else that could be justified as merely pushing the boundaries of ball management.
So, now Australia finds itself in the position where they can’t be caught or seen doing anything to the ball, and therefore can’t get it reversing.
Meanwhile, Warner is faced with being the fall-guy who can’t dob everyone in for what they’ve been doing to the ball for some time, or he’ll never be welcomed back into the fold.
Yet, he also has to cop being painted as some type of lone gunman, which he might think is a little unfair if he believes he was simply upping the ante in a team-wide tactic of ‘managing’ the ball to generate reverse swing.
Overall, the ‘sandpaper-gate’ story – much like ball-management itself – has some grey areas.
Yet if Australia had been doing something to the ball for a while to get reverse swing, but not going as far as to use sandpaper, you can understand why Warner, and ironically, the rest of the team, both hold the belief that the scandal paints them in an unfair light.
We may not know the next chapter in this story for some time yet, but it’s pretty apparent that there is one.
Waxhead
Roar Rookie
@ Ryan Good article and I had suspected similar myself. You're highly likely to be correct imo. The cheating issue will not be put to bed fully until Warner is gone from Aust teams and it remains to be seen if the current players will welcome him back in at all. They may not. Also remains to be seen if Warner still has the skills and temperament to score runs in Test cricket, especially outside Aust. He was always an eye player with little foot movement who relied on reflexes and a great eye on flat Aussie pitches. Post 30 these skills decline fast and runs dry up. There's lots of examples of this over the years. Sand-paper gate has years left in it imo.
James
Guest
The irony of having such a very English screen name yet pretend that the English dont attack (and admittedly love) their athletes more than any other nation.
James
Guest
Doesnt mean he wasnt doing something iffy with the bandages ofcourse but simply having bandages just seems smart.
James
Guest
Yeah in this day and age i dont think any amount of bandage can be iffy, players want to get out and play as quickly as possible and so will be out there with less than healed injuries and so youd wrap the hell out of it. Also as a preventative measure from bowlers targeting the injury which is totally acceptable for them to do too.
James
Guest
No we dont know if was sugar but it was something that a fine white powder substance that was served with a teaspoon that Bancroft heaped into his pocket. Really the only other option is salt but it does look more like sugar. There is a video of it. Its not proof of anything but it is weird to be doing and an explanation would have been nice especially as Bancroft must have remembered heaping that stuff into his pocket haha.
James
Guest
This is a valid reason not to like a player just as i love the boring players the non flashy ones. Just like in soccer i love the boring defender over the flashy trick laden striker more often than not. Its just a different way of looking and appreciating sports. So long as we all acknowledge that we are all right its good.
Maggie
Guest
Sorry about the hard-to-read format above. It’s not the way I typed it and I can’t find the edit function to now improve it. The edit pencil mentioned by someone else doesn’t appear for me.
Maggie
Guest
Several Roar BTL commentators have been forceful in their ‘sugar-in-the-pocket’ belief but have not told us what irrefutable evidence they have. All I’ve seen is the very short, blurry video and still taken from it. What I observe is: 1. To the (extremely brief) extent you can see the container Bancroft is spooning the substance from it looks much larger than you would expect a sugar bowl to be. 2. I would have expected sugar to be in paper saches not loose in an open comtainer (where sugar would quickly become contaminated by wet spoons etc.). 3. Bancroft spoons the substance with his right hand into his left hand, then uses his left hand to place it into his pocket. (The ‘pouring’ headline used in many headlines is false.) Try doing that with loose sugar - I think most of it would end up down the side of your trousers or stuck to your hand rather than in your pocket. 4. Finally and importantly - can anyone say the exact moment this video was filmed? Because Bancroft has his batting pads tucked under his arm which suggests he was about to go out to bat NOT to field. If this is correct it rather damages the ‘sugar to tamper the ball’ theory.
Basil
Guest
I'm not sure Warner actually has anything new to add that we don't already know or suspect. This seems to be just another chance for the conspiracists to propagate their theories. Although it might be interesting to get Warner's take on why he appears to be convinced of the South Africans cheating and his evidence for that, since this is a theme that goes back to a previous tour where as I recall he accused them of ball tampering. But that might have to wait until he retires and the book comes out!
JamesH
Roar Guru
FFS, this has been debunked. It was chewing gum and the whole team had been told to use a spoon so as not to risk spreading the gastro that the England camp was suffering. Even the English papers have conceded this.
Lara
Guest
There was once 3 amigos, Dumb, Dumber n Dumbest. Dumbest had this amazing idea which Dumb was to carry out in his pocket. Dumber wasn’t to sure , so sat on his hands . Dumb got court n later with Dumber pointed the finger at Dumbest. Dumbest hasn’t said a word, but when he does n hopefully he does, it might prove that he is not actually the dumbest. Nothing like a good old story with lots of naughty bits, I am sure some juicy names n characters will appear in this old story.
Ryan O'Connell
Expert
Thanks for reading and commenting, Bigal. Just on the question of how the could bowlers not know the ball had been sandpapered, it's worth noting that the umpires inspected the ball, and didn't even replace the ball, or punish Australia 5 runs. So it's certainly plausible that there wasn't significant enough damage to the ball for the bowlers to notice/see what had been done. Not saying that's what happened, but just worthwhile pointing that out for consideration.
Bangers N Mash
Guest
It was almost as though they , “wanted to get caught”.
Bigal
Roar Rookie
Ryan, an interesting and insightful commentary as always. You have hit the nail on the head with your theory that the Australia team had been upping the ante in ball management for quite a while. In my opinion the heat was on Warner at the time of SandpaperGate, he knew the SA media were onto him, and he anointed some other poor sucker to tak over the role. That sucker unfortunately was so inept that he was an easy catch for the SA media. I want to pose one other question though..How many of the remaining Australians knew what was going on, both in SA and beforehand? I've played cricket , opened the bowling and I had one tool of the trade.. the ball, and we all knew it well. We lovingly looked after one side and we made sure the other got as rough as it could. I can assure you I could identify exactly what happened to it between deliveries, and could spot every new mark or scratch on it. I find it hard to fathom that an elite cricketer could not identify that the ball in his hands had been sandpapered since he last held it. Smith said as much in his first news conference when he stated that "the leadership team" knew what was going on. Is Warner the scapegoat for everyone else who knew what was happening and went into hiding when they got caught.. I think so. The final thing which has grated on me since that fateful day is how on earth were an Australian Captain and a test player , both of whom had been caught utterly red handed, allowed to front a news conference and lie through their teeth about what had happened. Was there no media training? Was there no advice from anyone with two brain cells before they went out? Surely the only solution that afternoon was to either say nothing, or tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I remember that morning I woke up and viewed that news conference as the lowest point of the whole saga. And the cover ups and scapegoating hasn't lifted Aus from the mire since.. Sandpaper Gate is not dead and won't be until Dave Warner uncovers the bodies and the truth is told.
Ryan O'Connell
Expert
Self-loathing?
Ryan O'Connell
Expert
Did you see the way they executed it?! They clearly wasn't much practice!
Bangers N Mash
Guest
Sacrifice is a bit mild . Thrown to the Lions , would be more appropriate.
Allan
Guest
Totally agree. As a Pom even I will admit that DK Lillee is the best fast bowler I have ever seen. His run up was an art form in itself and was one of the reasons, including IT Botham and IVA Richards that I became a cricket fanatic.
Allan
Guest
Smith and Bancroft certainly did not do themselves any favours but the ACB have covered this up to protect 'the franchise'. Too much money to lose. Awaiting Warner's memoirs though, if he knows what that means.
Big Daddy
Guest
All of a sudden Australia decided to use sandpaper to make the ball reverse swing. Something like that takes a bit of practice and research so obviously it was a well thought out plan and must have been tried previously at some stage. To say these three were the only ones that knew is an understatement. Better to sacrifice the three than others who must have knew.