Ball-tampering in Cape Town led to sacking of captain Steve Smith and two other players and a softening of macho cultureTo some, scratching a cricket ball would be innocuous rather than infamous. But when the Australian batsman Cameron Bancroft did it during a Test match in Cape Town, the cricket world lit up. At the height of a viciously tempered series he used bright yellow sandpaper to rough up the leather in an attempt to aid his bowlers. Ball-tampering is a fact of cricket, but no international player had been caught so blatantly, using a foreign object smuggled on to the field. This time the offence was caught in lush high-definition by South African television. Related: Steve Smith’s media re-emergence is PR but his humility is genuine Continue reading…
Via: Flashpoints of 2018: sandpaper fiasco forces Australia to atone
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