Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft
Eight years after the Sandpaper Gate scandal shook Australian cricket, former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has offered a different perspective on one of the most controversial episodes in the sport.
Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera using sandpaper to alter the ball during the 2018 Cape Town Test against South Africa, setting off a scandal that engulfed the Australian team. Because taking a piece of sandpaper out of your pocket with cameras, it’s not the most clever thing to do,” Faf said, he doesn’t know how to get the ball to reverse swing,. Because he just didn’t know how to do it, i felt sorry for him.
Speaking to former South Africa pacer Vernon Philander on the ‘Beyond the Boundary’ podcast, he said his immediate reaction was sympathy for the young Australian batter. Like, don’t be glasshouse,” said Faf. Steve Smith and David Warner were also punished, with all three players losing their leadership positions or facing lengthy suspensions. But du Plessis believes Bancroft, in particular, was subjected to an unnecessarily harsh media trial. “Bancroft, and honestly, my first instincts with him were, I felt sorry for the guy. When I saw him, first of all, he did that, and I was like, ‘Shame. He doesn’t know what to do. The incident quickly escalated beyond the field. Du Plessis recalled how the South African team waited for Australia’s press conference following the day’s play, only to see the situation become even more explosive after the Australian team’s statement. “Then it was that whole incident. I mean, we were sitting after the day’s play. So we’re like, why are they taking so long? What are they doing? And then they issued that statement. And that statement was just like putting blitz under a fire and just going there. And they were saying, no one knows about it. The captain had no idea. The coach had no idea. And everyone was just like, well, hang on, what’s going on here? Everyone knows what goes on in a dressing room,” he added. “So I think it was more the way that they handled that that caused a lot of noise. And then it went back to Australia, where the Australian Prime Minister got involved. The ex-cricketers were smashing the team about how you can do that? And we were sitting there going, come on, guys. It’s not like you guys got a first to do it. You never did it. “Everyone has done it at some stage in their career. Warner, Smith and Bancroft were the three guys who were actually caught. I felt the right thing to do was to send Steve Smith a message and say, Listen, I know you guys are trying to do the right thing. You’re going to go through some crap over the next week. I thought it would be like a week or a month. But it ended up being a year. I was just like, I’m sorry you’re going through this. You shouldn’t take the brunt of this. It’s a thing that, unfortunately, should fall on the whole team. But yeah, I felt for Bancroft. And Steve Smith for trying to do the right thing to be the captain and say, it’s my show,” he added.
And we were like, the team is taking like an hour before the press conference has to start.