Tour threat revealed: How sandpaper Test might never have been played

A fortnight before Cameron Bancroft was caught with sandpaper in his pants at Newlands, Cricket South Africa’s president Chris Nenzani fielded an an angry phone call from his Australian counterpart David Peever.

A nasty series between the two teams was already spiralling out of control. There was the physical clash between David Warner and Quinton de Kock in the stairwell at Durban. This was followed by a fiery altercation on day one of the second Test at St George’s Park when Proteas fast bowler Kagiso Rabada bumped Steve Smith with his shoulder and screamed in his face after trapping the Australian captain leg before wicket.

Cricket South Africa officials Clive Eksteen and Altaaf Kazi pose with spectators wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks at St George’s Park in 2018.

Then, after that day’s play, more kerosene was poured on the fire when it was reported that two South African cricket officials had posed for a photo with spectators wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks. The masks mocked Warner’s wife, Candice, for a dalliance with the footballer many years earlier.

Cricket Australia’s fury over the incident is well documented. But what has not been revealed until now is that Peever threatened to cancel the tour during that phone call with Nenzani. Board sources speaking on the condition of anonymity because the conversation was confidential say that the CA chairman told his opposite number that if the two officials were not stood down immediately the Australians were going home. The CSA president was so concerned that he drove from his home in Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth – a 10-hour journey – to deal with the firestorm and meet with Australian officials face to face.

It’s more than three years after Australian cricket was brought to its knees in Cape Town and the game is again wrestling with who knew what and what more should have been done. Peever’s threat to pull the tour isn’t just a reminder of what a powderkeg that infamous series was. It underlines why Sandpapergate won’t go away.

There can never be any excuse for bringing a object like sandpaper onto the ground to rough up the ball so it will swing more. It is why Bancroft was suspended for nine months and Smith and Warner for a year, punishments that cost the former captain and vice-captain millions in lost sponsorship and torn-up playing contracts.

David Warner and Quinton de Kock clash in the stairwell at Kingsmead during the first Test three years ago.

Yet the volatile climate in South Africa amplified a “win at all costs” culture of the men’s Test team. It is a culture that was found in a report written by Simon Longstaff of The Ethics Centre in October 2018 to have permeated from the CA administration itself.

Longstaff reported that responsibility for the Australian team’s freefall laid “with CA and not just the players held directly responsible for the appalling incidents at Newlands”.

The Australian team had been guilty of misbehaviour from the outset of the tour. Their pre-series request for the stump microphones to be turned down was a sign of what was to come. It can also be reported for the first time that after the ugly scenes of Kingsmead, Smith received a phone call from then chief executive James Sutherland demanding he get his house in order.

History tells us that did not happen and, as has been shown this week, the reverberations of what took place two matches later at Newlands are still being felt.

Cameron Bancroft talks to the umpires as he is sprung with sandpaper in Cape Town.Credit:AP

The scandal hit the headlines again this week after an interview Bancroft gave to The Guardian. Bancroft indicated more players knew about the sandpaper plot than the three batsmen.

“Yeah, obviously what I did benefits bowlers and the awareness around that, probably, is self-explanatory,” he said.

The four Australian bowlers who played in the notorious Test – Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon – were unimpressed. They released a statement independent of CA in which they strongly denied knowing about any foreign substance at Newlands.

Not for the first time, Bancroft’s remarks appear to have a bit of deer-in-the-headlights about them rather than a deliberate breaking of some oath of omerta. They have, however, set off a new discussion about whether the Cape Town trio wore too much of the blame on their own and whether CA should have gone beyond ring-fencing the cheating controversy around them.

It may never be proved who else, if anyone, knew about sandpaper being brought on the field – Smith hasn’t even specifically said he did, only that he “walked past” Warner and Bancroft conspiring in the dressing-room. But the question being asked now, as it was then, is more whether there should have been collective responsibility?

Setting aside individuals’ knowledge of the Newlands incident itself, there is a belief from at least two members of the squad that there should have been wider accountability among players and coaches. The argument is that Australia, like other teams in world cricket, had been pushing the boundaries in the dark arts of “ball management”, desperate to gain any advantage they could, and Cape Town was simply the point where it tipped over the edge.

The team’s bowling coach at the time, David Saker, alluded to it this week without actually saying it, conceding the Newlands implosion “could have been stopped and it wasn’t”.

CA is also again under the gun for what Warner’s agent James Erskine labels a “joke” of a ball-tampering investigation in Cape Town. It was conducted over 48 hours in the room of CA’s head of integrity, Iain Roy, at the Southern Sun Cullinan Hotel. There were two ICC officials present as 10 players of the 15 players on tour put their testimony on tape – six staff were also interviewed – and sanctions were promptly announced ahead of the fourth Test in Johannesburg.

While standing by the outcome, at least one Australian official speaking on the condition of anonymity admits now that in hindsight it might have been better if Smith, Bancroft and Warner were ruled out of that final match of the series (Smith was already suspended from it by the ICC) and a more wide-ranging probe into the team’s activities with the ball was conducted when they returned home.

However, the official recalls the atmosphere at the time, with public shock and outrage, sponsors venting their rage and then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull calling Peever and demanding “decisive action” from CA. The game was also deep in talks for a new television deal.

Other decision makers from the time maintain the external pressure was not a factor in the speed of the investigation and the severity of the penalties and refute accusations that the inquiry was not thorough.

What is certain is this is not the last we will hear of Cape Town. There will be players’ books to come, which will send the whole thing into overdrive again.

In the meantime those still in the Australian team will have to put any lingering resentment about one another or with CA to one side. If only Australia had quit the tour in Port Elizabeth after all.

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