Ex-South African captain Faf du Plessis has opened up with his side of the infamous Sandpapergate controversy in his autobiography, Faf: Through Fire, stunningly stating that Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft were unfairly punished.
Du Plessis, who himself has been accused of ball tampering and has also been suspended twice, was of the opinion that while ball tampering was not a new phenomenon in the world of international cricket, the premeditated nature of the Australian offence in Johannesburg was the ethical conundrum that faced Cricket Australia.
The Australian governing board suspended three members, including captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner, who were supposedly part of a ‘leadership group’ along with Cameron Bancroft, who carried out the tampering with what looked like a piece of sandpaper.
Du Plessis also made the stunning claim that the Proteas suspected some form of mischief from the Aussies in the first Test at Durban itself, as the ball was reversing like nothing they had ever seen. This apparently prompted the South Africans to constantly monitor the ball in the second Test with a pair of binoculars.
He mentioned that the ball almost always passed through Warner, perhaps subtly hinting that the Australian veteran was the perpetrator of the offence. Further, he refused to believe that the bowlers were unaware of the events that were taking place, but yet expressed sympathy towards Smith and Bancroft, saying that they were unfairly targeted.
“During the first Test in Durban, the Australian pace attack had got the ball to reverse insanely.
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.”
Faf writes.
“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. We now know that there was an obvious reason for that.” du Plessis added.
