Faf du Plessis on 2018 ball-tampering scandal: We watched through binoculars to follow the ball more closely

Faf du Plessis reopened the feud between South Africa and Australia over the 2018 ball-tampering scandal, saying the Proteas suspected wrongdoing from the start of the Test series.

Faf du Plessis led South Africa during the 2018 Test series against Australia. (Reuters Photo)

By India Today Web Desk: Former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis reopened the 2018 Australian ball-tampering scandal or the Sandpapergate, saying the Proteas suspected wrongdoing from the start of the Test series.

During the fourth-Test match series, Australia’s Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera while trying to rough up one side of the ball with sandpaper to make it swing. Subsequently, then captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner were found to be involved and the three players were slapped with sanctions from Cricket Australia.

The Australian cricket board handed a nine-month ban to Bancroft and a year-long suspensions to Smith and Warner. Moreover, Warner also received a life-time captaincy ban by Cricket Australia.

Faf du Plessis, in his book ‘Faf: Through Fire’, stated that Australia were already tampering the ball earlier in the series.

“During the first Test in Durban, the Australian pace attack had got the ball to reverse insanely,” du Plessis wrote. “Mitchell Starc claimed nine wickets and, although I regard him as one of the best proponents of reverse-swing bowling I have ever seen or faced, those deliveries in Durban were borderline unplayable.

“He would come in around the wicket with a badly deteriorated ball and get it to hoop past us. Our balls had also reversed but not nearly as much as theirs. We suspected that someone had been nurturing the ball too much to get it to reverse so wildly, and we watched the second Test at St George’s through binoculars, so that we could follow the ball more closely while Australia was fielding.

“When we noticed that the ball was going to David Warner quite often – our changing room must have looked like a birdwatching hide as we peered intently through our binoculars. There was a visible difference between how Mitchell Starc got the ball to reverse in the first Test in Durban and the final Test in Johannesburg. We now know that there was an obvious reason for that.”

Faf du Plessis, who retired from Test cricket but plays in T20 leagues, was himself found guilty of applying mint via saliva during a series between South Africa and Australia in 2016. He stated that “I’m not mentioning this from atop a high horse” and added that he had “tremendous sympathy” for what Smith and Bancroft went through in the aftermath.