'Saw it happen in the fourth Test of that series' - Tim Paine accuses South Africa of ball tampering in autobiography

The former Australian captain Tim Paine has accused South Africa of ball tampering during the fourth Test match between the two nations at Johannesburg in 2018. Paine, who was captain of the Australian team during the infamous sandpaper-gate scandal that happened in the third Test match at Cape Town, has made some shocking revelations in his autobiography, The Paid Price.

Paine, 37, has denied the claims of a team meeting to plan for Cameron Bancroft to use the sandpaper on the ball during the third Test. He also wrote that he and his teammates were shocked to see Bancroft using the sandpaper and hiding it in his pants in the replay. "I was thinking 'what the f**k'. A sense of dread came over us all," Paine wrote.

I saw it happen in the fourth Test of that series: Tim Paine

Paine also claimed that South African players also tampered the ball in the following Test at Johannesburg but the broadcasters "covered up" that incident. He revealed that the television director, who played a key role in catching Bancroft in the Third Test, failed to replay footage of the South African players' involvement in a ball-tampering in the following Test. 

"I saw it happen in the fourth Test of that series. Think about that. After everything that had happened in Cape Town, after all the headlines and bans and carry on. I was standing at the bowlers' end in the next Test when a shot came up on the screen of a South African player at mid-off having a huge crack at the ball.

"The television director, who had played an active role in catching out Cam, immediately pulled the shot off the screen. We went to the umpires about it, which might seem a bit poor, but we'd been slaughtered and were convinced they'd been up to it since the first Test. But the footage got lost. As it would," he wrote.