Sydney: Australia’s former Test captain Tim Paine has accused the South African team of ball tampering in the Test after the infamous Cape Town Test. Tim Paine says South Africa committed ball tampering in the second match in Johannesburg after Australian cricket was rocked by the sandpaper gate scandal. He also claimed that the match broadcasters covered up the ball tampering.
Penn makes several explosive claims in his autobiography The Price Paid. The former Test captain made several claims on ball tampering in the 2018 Cape Town Test. Paine dismissed any suggestion of a team meeting over Cameron Bancroft’s plan to use sandpaper on the ball during the third Test of the series against South Africa. He says he was stunned and heartbroken, because in the replay Bancroft hid the sandpaper in his pants before talking to the umpire. I was wondering what this was, Penn wrote. We all felt fear. Payne has written a long chapter on ball tampering and called it the dirty secret of sports.
However, he admitted that using sandpaper was embarrassing, traditionally manipulating methods such as throwing the ball on the ground. He also says he was furious when he saw South Africa allegedly seaming the ball in the next Test. Penn wrote that in the fourth Test of the Test series, I saw that the ball was swinging more.
He further wrote that after what happened in Cape Town, there were many headlines and bans. As I stood at the non-striker end in the next Test, the screen showed a large crack on the ball as a South African shot at mid-off. The television director, who was actively involved in capturing the cam, immediately removed the shot from the screen.