Sydney:
The Australian cricket team was embroiled in a ball-tampering controversy during a Test in Cape Town in 2018 when they toured South Africa. It was discovered that Australian player Pan Graft had rubbed the ball with saltpeter to make the ball ‘swing’, with the complicity of captain Steven Smith and vice-captain David Warner. Subsequently, Sumit and Warner were banned for one year and Bancroft for 9 months. Sumit also lost the captaincy. He was replaced by Tim Paine as the new captain. Australia lost to South Africa by 492 runs in the 4th Test in Johannesburg.
Tim Paine, who served as captain until 2021, stepped down as captain over the issue of sending obscene messages to a female staff member.
In this situation, Tim Paine has now stirred sensational allegations that not only the Australian players, but also the South African team used ball-tampering tactics in the Test series held 4 years ago. In his autobiographical book he has said about this matter:-
We all froze in shock when we saw the scene of Pan Graft rubbing the ball on the screen with a salt sheet hidden in his pants pocket in the Cape Town Test. Trying to change the nature of the ball is something that can happen in cricket. But rubbing it with salt is different. This is a shameful act. But nothing was discussed in the team’s advisory meeting to model this. Sumit, Bancroft and Warner were left alone on this issue. The team management should have supported them.
The ball tampering incident in the 3rd Test and the suspension of the players were much talked about. Then in the 4th Test I saw the South African team tampering with the ball. As I was standing at the bowler’s end, I saw on the mega screen a South African player standing towards ‘mid-op’, pinching the thread on the ball and scratching it profusely. But the television director who exposed Bancroft’s actions immediately removed the scene from the screen. I appealed to the referee about this. But he didn’t take it seriously. After that the video did not show the scene again.
This is what Tim Payne mentioned in it.