The Sandpaper Gate scandal remains one of the darkest chapters in Australian cricket history. What began as a ball-tampering incident during the 2018 Cape Town Test against South Africa quickly developed into a crisis that cost three Australian players their reputations and leadership positions. Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera attempting to alter the surface of the cricket ball using a piece of sandpaper. The images spread rapidly around the world, creating an uproar and putting Australia under enormous pressure.
Eight years after the incident, then-South Africa captain Faf du Plessis opened up about it, saying he felt sorry for Bancroft for the media trial he was subjected to.
“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. He doesn’t know how to get the ball to reverse swing, because taking a piece of sandpaper out of your pocket with cameras, it’s not the most clever thing to do,” Faf told former South Africa pacer Vernon Philander on the ‘Beyond the Boundary’ podcast.
“Then it was that whole incident. I mean, we were sitting after the day’s play. And we were like, the team is taking like an hour before the press conference has to start. 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.
Australia could have handled it better
The fallout from the Sandpaper Gate intensified when then-Australia captain Steve Smith admitted to the ball tampering allegations. David Warner was subsequently identified as the senior player who played a central role in the plan, while Bancroft was the player who carried out the act on the field.
Cricket Australia responded with significant suspensions. Smith and Warner were banned for 12 months, while Bancroft received a nine-month suspension. Smith and Warner were also stripped of their leadership positions. While Smith was reinstated as vice-captain years later, Warner never had the chance to lead Australia in his professional career.
Faf then said that Cricket Australia handled the matter poorly and could have done better in standing up for the players.
“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. Like, don’t be glasshouse,” said Faf.
“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. I felt sorry for him because he just didn’t know how to do it. And Steve Smith for trying to do the right thing to be the captain and say, it’s my show,” he added.
The former South Africa captain further added that the right thing to do would have been to dock the players’ match fees, and that the case didn’t merit handing out bans to the players involved.
“I think they could have handled that a little bit better. Cricket Australia had other ideas. And they made that thing become a very big thing. Just let the ICC deal with it. I think when you let politics and stuff come into sport, it never ends well. And that’s the case with the Prime Minister’s politics and everyone putting pressure on them. And they’re feeling like they have to act. They have to act to show that they’re doing something. I think that becomes a dangerous precedent,” said Faf.
“I think if they took it on the chin on that night and said, Cameron would have said, I’m sorry, I made it a bad thing. I’m young in international cricket, and I’m sorry. Which he obviously did. But I think he would have gotten a 50 per cent match fee from the ICC. Steve Smith would have played the next Test match. David Warner, they would have played the whole rest of the year. But what ended up happening is they missed a year of cricket,” he added.