Aadd it to the immeasurable list of things you can blame on Covid. Had it not been for the pandemic, Australia’s Test team would have traveled to South Africa in February 2021, less than three years after a tidy home from Johannesburg following the 2018 sandpaper scandal. There would be more focus on the returning players with fresh memories: sacked captain Steve Smith, his replacement Tim Paine and main antagonist David Warner headlined, supported by bowlers Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc.
After Cameron Bancroft was caught sanding the match ball in the third Test in Cape Town, at the very least, this prompt rematch would be the modern humiliation of Australian cricket. Instead, a lack of appetite for a pandemic-era tour has seen Cricket Australia cancel its 2021 tour without a replacement on the road, and although there have been white-ball trips in between, it has now taken eight years for an Australian Test to return.
Eight years. Two Olympics. Two FIFA World Cups. About 15 World Cups in different types of cricket. After all this time, the sandpaper story still leads this series. Contributing to its existence is that despite the possibility of sporting deaths, with Warner and Paine long gone, Smith and four bowlers remain.
The numerous retrospectives have understandably led to sandpaper fatigue, with viewers tired of hearing about the old story before the new series, while others make historical revisions. Various pundits have suggested that the bans on the players involved were an overreaction, a worthy stance given the prevalence of ball-tampering in the sport, but ignore the press conference in which Smith and Bancroft stupidly lied to cover up their point. Other observers argued that whatever the details, the story was too old to die. “What will come out in eight years?” asked Starc this week.
The answer is everything, because there really is nothing. As of 2018, every player and member of staff has openly maintained an uneasy truce that was struck within days: before that match, no Australian player had tampered with the ball, and no one but the three accused players knew. Horribly shallow research has allowed Cricket Australia (CA) to arrive at these most favorable conclusions, thus avoiding seeking anything less palatable.
That’s why an old story lives on, twitching like a cut electrical cord. CA’s disciplinary report identified Warner as the instigator, Bancroft as the patsy and Smith as the leader who failed to restrict them, but neither player ever publicly admitted what happened either on the tour or on that day. The closest was a 2021 statement from four bowlers who insisted they had no knowledge of the plan, but did not say who knew. They did not say who did not. Not a single football player said that any of the coaches knew or did not know. Everyone was politely vague to avoid the impression of finger-pointing and hoped the story would go away.
Warner, meanwhile, has hinted for years that he’s had a tough time. In the past week, he has again engaged in a series of social media posts and responses, trying to cast doubt on the idea that he was primarily responsible. However, he continues to withhold any information that would support this claim. His former teammates won’t name Warner, and Warner won’t name them. Stories disappear only when they solve the mysteries of their plots, and the wait for that continues.
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For all we know now, despite its ad nauseam nature, sandpaper shredding might be something to be thankful for overall. Not in the case of Bancroft, a truly defeated player with an Australian career that never recovered and a local player who bounced around like sleep apnea. But that could be just as well for the Australian team, who beat the temptation with the hard-nosed bluster that made previous champion sides so unlikable.
Instead, there is a section of players who seem affable enough to attract the attention of drunken foreign audiences in the past. They may still attract ire for their performance, but less so for their personality. England supporters tried to rage at Cummins and Alex Carey after the Lord’s Test in 2023, but hating two of the game’s quietest and most dignified characters is a tough sell. On-field manners have paid off: retaining the Ashes twice in England, winning twice in Australia, developing a compelling rivalry during the tour of India, Test series wins in four other countries and pocketing two World Cup delights and a Test Championship along the way.
The cultural shift would not have been possible without the culture shock that preceded it and the rare shared acknowledgment that the national team’s slate needed a wet cloth. With luck, after the callbacks the upcoming series calls for, the sandpaper story can continue to recede, and the cultural gains that follow can continue to be banked. Still, the players involved should know that the truth doesn’t rest until they are named. This story will live on for many more years until it finally falls asleep.