On this day: Cameron Bancroft is caught with sandpaper in his pants

On 24 March 2018, Australian cricket suffered a hammer blow to its reputation as Cameron Bancroft was caught with sandpaper concealed in his trousers.

Bancroft had intended to use the strip of abrasive material to alter the condition of the ball during the Newlands Test against South Africa.

Cameron Bancroft is caught with sandpaper in his pants

The series had been contested in an ill-tempered fashion and emotion was running high as the Proteas took control of the Test at Newlands.

TV cameras spotted Bancroft pulling something out of his waistband before placing it in his pocket.

When initially confronted, Bancroft lied about its existence and then about the nature of the object.

Later it would be revealed that then vice-captain David Warner had hatched the plot and that Steve Smith was in on it.

There were tearful apologies from all three men, and they were all handed lenghty bans from Cricket Australia, for bringing the game into disrepute.

While the ICC imposed a minimal sanction Australia embarked on a cultural revolution fired by the embarrassment of being caught cheating.

Justin Langer was hired as coach to replace Darren Lehmann, who was widely criticised for allowing the players to carry out such an outrageous plot on his watch.

Lehmann has denied foreknowledge of the event as have all of the Australia fast bowlers involved in the match.

In the immediate aftermath, Australia’s bowlers would be unable to extract reverse swing from the ball, which sparked suspicion that they may have been getting away with tampering for some time.

After serving their bans all three men returned to the Australia fold, although Bancroft would not recover his pre-sandpaper form and hasn’t played since the 2019 Ashes series in England.

The events inspired a SuperSport documentary called ‘Crossing the line’ which covered not only the tampering and its fallout but the events that preceded it.