Eight years after the ball-tampering scandal that shook Australian cricket, former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has offered a retrospective view of the 2018 Cape Town Test, expressing sympathy for Cameron Bancroft and criticising how Cricket Australia handled the fallout.
In an interview with former South Africa pacer Vernon Philander on the 'Beyond the Boundary' podcast, du Plessis, who captained the Proteas during that Test, recalled his immediate reaction when television cameras caught Bancroft using sandpaper on the ball. "Bancroft, and honestly, my first instincts with him were, I felt sorry for the guy," du Plessis said. "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."
The incident sparked a major crisis for Australian cricket. Steve Smith lost the captaincy and, along with David Warner, was banned for 12 months by Cricket Australia. Bancroft received a nine-month suspension. The bans followed intense public and political pressure, with the Australian Prime Minister getting involved and former players publicly criticising the team.
Du Plessis recounted how the South African team waited for Australia's press conference after the day's play and wondered why it was taking so long. When the Australian team finally issued a statement claiming no one else knew about the tampering, du Plessis said it only fueled further controversy. "That statement was just like putting blitz under a fire and just going there," he said. "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."
Du Plessis was critical of how Cricket Australia managed the crisis, suggesting the disciplinary process should have been left to the International Cricket Council (ICC), with Cricket Australia potentially imposing financial penalties instead of lengthy bans. He said the way the matter was handled caused a lot of noise, with ex-cricketers "smashing the team" and politics entering the sport. "I think the ICC should have handled the disciplinary side," he said, "and Cricket Australia could have fined them financially. But they didn't, and because of that, it became a bigger crisis."
He also said that ball tampering is not uncommon in the sport. "Everyone has done ball tampering at some stage in their career," du Plessis said. "Warner, Smith, and Bancroft were the three guys who were actually caught." He expressed sympathy for Bancroft in particular, noting the young batter "just didn't know how to do it," while praising Smith for trying to take responsibility as captain, saying, "It's my show."
Du Plessis revealed he reached out to Smith during the fallout. "I sent Steve Smith a message," he said. "I expected the punishment to last a week or a month, but it ended up being a year." He believed the punishment should not have fallen solely on the three players but should have been shared by the whole team.
Reflecting on how the matter could have been handled differently, du Plessis said that if the ICC had taken charge of the disciplinary side and Cricket Australia had imposed financial penalties, Bancroft might have received a 50 per cent match fee, Smith could have played the next Test, and Warner could have played the rest of the year. "Letting politics come into sport never ends well," he added.