Don’t talk the talk — walk the walk

● Whatever you do, Faf, don’t mention the ball-tampering. Who the hell are we kidding? Do not stop talking about it. Not for a moment until you’re getting onto the plane back home.

Actually, not even then: “Excuse me, Quantas, but do I pack the scuffed up balls in my big bag or is it okay to put them in my hand luggage?

“That’s them in this clear plastic bag, along with some sandpaper and a pair of boxers. They’re yellow with brown streaks.”

And not in the pressers: “Sorry, mate, but my answer to your question could rub people up the wrong way — and we all know what happens when that kind of thing is caught on camera, don’t we?”

And certainly not on the field: “Geez, okes — no Hash, no JP. At least they haven’t been sent home in disgrace, like other super senior players we can think of, né. Anyway. Can’t wait to get back to Newlands again, ’cause it’s a bit cold at this ground. Suppose that’s why we’re all standing around with our hands down the front of our pants.”

Not often are SA able to go to Australia and behave like Australians.

That’s if they want to. But they shouldn’t want to. Because they’re better than that. Actually, they aren’t at all better in the least acknowledged respect of this sorry saga: no team has been nailed for ball-tampering in the past few years as often as SA. They’ve been done three times since 2013.

Du Plessis himself has two convictions on his record.

And all three of those times Cricket SA (CSA) have defended the transgressors to tragicomic degrees. Not so Cricket Australia (CA), who lunged lustily for the throats of their ball-tamperers.

All the other flaccid suits, the

Not often are SA able to go to Australia and behave like Australians

International Cricket Council’s (ICC) included, have treated guilty players as if they had been caught wearing odd socks.

That isn’t to say the Aussies have got everything right in the aftermath.

CA handed out far more severe punishments to the players involved than the ICC, and mounted investigations into the “culture” of their men’s team and themselves smartly enough.

But they have since appointed a captain, a head coach, a CE and a chairman without revealing publicly the findings and recommendations of their efforts to get to the bottom of it all.

Could this be another instance of the age old trick of burying badness by ordering it investigated?

South African cricket’s recent history exhibits A and B of the authorities trying to be seen to be doing something are the King and Nicholson commissions into match-fixing and dodgy bonus payments.

Both were heralded with fanfare and conducted with seriousness and diligence.

Neither led to lasting change for the good.

We’ll know if that is the case again if David Warner, the chief villain of this piece, is given back his baggy green. For all his talent and competitive spirit, Warner, like Cronjé, should be treated as what he undoubtedly is: a pox on the game.

To borrow Percy Sonn’s line on Cronjé, Warner shouldn’t be allowed to play beach cricket again.

But Warner was also one of the noisiest figures in the bitterly fought pay dispute between Australia’s players and CA in the months leading up to the tour of SA that stained the headlines with cynicism.

Warner has earned the trouble he’s in, but he might not have been in quite so much of the stuff had he not roused rabble as readily as he did with the bosses.

Then again, he might not have been as effective in that important and honourable role if he wasn’t a proper dickhead.

Seven months have passed since Newlands and all that, and yet the stink — fuelled by the ugliness we saw on the dressing-room stairs at Kingsmead and the savagery in the crowd at St George’s Park — lingers still.

Actually, Faf, don’t say anything. Just play cricket.