On the third afternoon at Newlands on 24 March 2018, a television camera followed Cameron Bancroft’s hands to the front of his trousers. Within 72 hours Steve Smith and David Warner had 12-month bans, Bancroft nine months, coach Darren Lehmann had resigned and Australia’s prime minister had issued a statement about a cricket match.
On 27 October, Pat Cummins leads Australia back to that ground for the first time since. The series opens at Kingsmead on 9 October and St George’s Park on 18 October before Cape Town. Six of the touring squad were there in 2018: Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Smith, Mitchell Starc and Matthew Renshaw, flown over once the suspensions landed.
“Talk of sandpapergate will be around for the whole series. If I was in the Australian camp, I would be preparing for it,” former South Africa captain Graeme Smith said.
So where does sandpaper in a pocket rank in 149 years of Test cricket disgrace?
The top three: results, politics and prison
- 1. Hansie Cronje and the bookmakers, 2000. In April 2000 Delhi police released transcripts of South Africa’s captain discussing money with a bookmaker. Cronje denied everything, then confessed to the King Commission: cash and a leather jacket for team information, and approaches to teammates about underperforming. He was banned for life and died in a plane crash in June 2002, aged 32. The same inquiry ended Mohammad Azharuddin and Salim Malik. Nothing else has made spectators wonder whether what they watched was real.
- 2. The D’Oliveira affair, 1968. Basil D’Oliveira, a Cape Coloured cricketer who had left South Africa to play in England, made 158 against Australia at The Oval and was then left out of England’s party to tour his country of birth. When he was added as a replacement, prime minister John Vorster refused to accept the side, and the tour was cancelled. South Africa played their last Test of the era in 1970 and did not return until 1992: 22 years of isolation from one selection meeting.
- 3. Pakistan’s spot-fixing at Lord’s, 2010. Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif bowled no-balls to order in the fourth Test against England, arranged by agent Mazhar Majeed, who took £150,000 from an undercover reporter. Captain Salman Butt, Asif and Amir were banned and jailed at Southwark Crown Court in November 2011. Amir was 18; he bowled at Lord’s again in 2016.
Four to seven: bruises, a forfeit and a secret fine
- 4. Bodyline, 1932-33. Douglas Jardine’s leg theory was built to stop one batter and nearly severed two countries’ relations. Bill Woodfull was struck over the heart at Adelaide; Bert Oldfield’s skull was fractured in the same match. Australia’s board cabled the MCC accusing England of “unsportsmanlike” play. England won 4-1, Don Bradman averaged 56.57 against a career figure of 99.94, and the laws on leg-side fielders were rewritten.
- 5. Sandpapergate, 2018. A premeditated plan, agreed by a leadership group and executed in front of 20 cameras.
- 6. The Oval forfeit, 2006. Umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove penalised Pakistan five runs for ball-tampering. Inzamam-ul-Haq kept his side in the dressing room after tea, Hair removed the bails, and it became the only forfeited Test. The ICC made it a draw in 2008, then restored England’s win a year later.
- 7. Warne, Waugh and “John”, 1994-98. Shane Warne and Mark Waugh took money from an Indian bookmaker for pitch and weather information. The Australian Cricket Board fined them and told nobody. It emerged in December 1998, almost four years later, both men still in the side.
Why sandpapergate sits fifth, not first
Ball-tampering is a minor offence with a long, unglamorous history. Michael Atherton was fined £2,000 for the dirt in his pocket in 1994. Faf du Plessis lost half a match fee in Dubai in 2013 for working the ball on his trouser zip, and all of it for the mint in Hobart in 2016. All of them played the following week.
Cape Town was different in structure: the plan came from senior players, the least experienced batter carried it out, and the account given afterwards was false. Cricket Australia’s own review described a culture that had made it possible. The year-long bans were for the conspiracy and the cover-up, not the abrasive.
But it did not change a result, move a border or put anyone in a cell. That is the dividing line. Cricket survives players cheating with the ball. It barely survives doubt about the scoreboard.
Australia arrive with a rewritten integrity code, a captain who was on the field that day, and no Warner, retired from Tests since January 2024. Smith will be asked. Cummins will be asked. Eight years on, that is the real sentence — not the ban, but the question waiting at every arrivals gate in Cape Town.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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