With the beginning of the Test series between South Africa and Australia, the incident of ball tampering is once again in the news. Earlier, when the Australian team had reached South Africa, the Kangaroo players had done ball tampering to win the match. This brought a lot of disrepute to the Australian team. However, the surprising thing is that the broadcaster had revealed ball tampering by mistake. Due to his habit of covering football and rugby matches, he kept the camera on the ball in cricket too and later zoomed in. For this reason sandpaper was seen in Bancroft’s hand. After this the dark deeds of the Australian team came to light.
Cape Town Test broadcaster Alvin Naicker had said that the Australian team being caught ball tampering was a coincidence. According to BBC, he said, ‘The way the Australian team was caught was a sheer coincidence. Rugby and football broadcasts are highly organized. First cameras one and two are on, then when the game stops, the entire story is shown through close-up shots. When something similar was done in a cricket match, ball tampering was caught.
Bancroft caught after rubbing the ball on his palm
Naicker said that the 2018 series had started in a bad environment. Despite irregularities in the first two Test matches, local broadcasters were not monitoring ball tampering by Australian players. He said, ‘Nobody told me anything. There was a lot of chaos in the first test in Durban. After this, there was chaos in the second test match in Port Elizabeth also. Even then we did not understand anything. The ball went to the wicketkeeper, then to Bancroft and he was shining the ball. First the ball was on his pants, then on the next ball, the cameraman’s attention remained on Bancroft because he was rubbing the ball not on his pants but on his palm.
Truth revealed in big lens
“When he threw the ball, he put his hand in the pocket,” Nacker said. The cameraman zoomed in on the pocket with a camera with a large lens. The slo-mo operator looked at it, panned back and forth, then zoomed in and sandpaper came into view. After this, Bancroft hid the sandpaper in his pants. The broadcaster repeatedly showed this incident on screen. When Bancroft looked at the screen, he took it out and put it in his underwear. The cameraman recorded it. Still, it was not live, we played a replay.
Ban imposed on all three players
After this incident, Smith broke down in tears during a live television interview and admitted his mistake. However, after this he was banned for 12 months from international and domestic cricket. Along with this, the captaincy was also taken away from him. Warner was also banned for 12 months and was barred from ever becoming captain in Australian cricket. At the same time, Bancroft was banned for 9 months from international and domestic cricket. The surprising thing in this was that there was no action on any bowler, whereas it is the bowlers who remain in contact with the ball the most. In such a situation, how was it possible that no bowler was aware about ball tampering?