On This Day: Cricket’s darkest scandal happened on this day, Australians were caught on camera openly doing dishonesty

New Delhi: 24 March 2018 was the third day of the Test match being played between Australia and South Africa in Cape Town. This series was not going anything special for Australia. Only then on the field Australia hatched a conspiracy to defeat South Africa which proved to be the darkest scandal in the history of cricket. It was the Sandpaper Gate scandal in which Cameron Bancroft, along with the then Australian captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner, got caught.

After this incident, the Australian team was thrashed all over the world. The whole country was ashamed of Steve Smith, Warner and Bancroft. The dishonesty done by him on the cricket field had come openly on camera. For this reason, as soon as the match ended on the fourth day of the Cape Town Test, Smith and Warner resigned from the captaincy and vice-captaincy.

Smith and Warner publicly confessed to ball tempering in a press conference after the foul play was caught on camera. After this, the Australian Cricket Board banned Smith and Warner from international cricket for one year each, while Bancroft was sentenced to a ban of 9 months.

How did the sandpaper scandal happen?

On the third day of the Cape Town Test, the on-field umpire observed Bancroft rubbing the ball with some yellow tape. The umpire objected to this. During this, Smith, Warner and Bancroft said that he was just trying to shine the ball. Although this dishonesty of Australia could not escape the camera.

It was seen on camera that Bancroft rubbed the ball with yellow tape and put it inside his trousers. This yellow tape was sandpaper that would make the ball more difficult for the batsmen by scratching it more. Seeing the matter increasing, the umpire confiscated that ball from Bancroft. However, the game was started once again with the new ball. On the fourth day of the Test match, South Africa gave a double blow to Australia by winning the match by a big margin. In this match, Morne Morkel of South Africa performed brilliant bowling in which he took 9 wickets in both innings. This was also Morkel’s last Test match.

After this, when the whole secret was revealed, Smith and Smith accepted their handiwork. The board not only banned Smith and Warner for one year but also took a tough decision. The Australian Cricket Board banned Warner from captaincy in any format for life.

Although after the end of the one-year ban, all these three players returned to international cricket and represented their country, but they definitely got a big lesson from this incident.

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