Evolution of a sticky situation
SOUTH Africa was 1-65 in its second innings at lunch on day three of the third Test.
It was 121 runs in front in a match Australia had to win to have any chance of taking the series.
In the change rooms, someone came up with a plan, greenlit by captain Steve Smith, which would change the lives of everyone in the Australian team.
Cameron Bancroft, playing in just his eighth Test, would take some sticky yellow tape on the field, touch the ground with the tape inside his hand, and get it to pick up rough debris from the pitch.
Then he would use the dirty tape, hidden inside his hand, to rough up one side of the ball in the hope it would create reverse swing — or for the umpires to be concerned about its condition and change it.
But there are 30 TV cameras at the ground that spied what Bancroft was doing.
At first, a small yellow object was filmed in his hands. Then he was filmed taking it from his pocket and put it down his trousers. He did that because up in the stands, coach Darren Lehmann, watching the TV broadcast, had seen what Bancroft had done and sent a message to 12th man Peter Handscomb, who went out on to the field to tell Bancroft.
The umpires spoke to Bancroft, who pulled out a black cloth that holds his sunglasses.
The umpires moved on, but investigations were happening off field.
The day’s play went on but finished early because of bad light. Then things exploded.
Bancroft and Smith fronted the media, Bancroft declaring he had been charged for altering the ball and Smith admit- ting it was a plan they had hatched.
“I saw an opportunity to use some tape, get some granules from rough patches on the wicket,” Bancroft said.
“Once being sighted on the screen I panicked quite a lot and that resulted in me shoving it down my trousers … and I have been charged.
“I’ll be honest with you, I was obviously nervous about it because with hundreds of cameras around that’s always the risk, isn’t it? I sit before you today and I’m not proud of what’s happened.”
No one in Australia is.