Former South African pacer reveals how cameraman got to know about Bancroft's antics

Team Australia have found themselves in troubled waters in last couple of days. The players of the team, including their leader Steve Smith, have been found guilty of ball tampering in the third Test against South Africa. Their action was caught on the camera. The big question that comes to the fore is how did the cameramen figure out their actions. Reportedly, former South African pacer, Fanie de Villiers, was the man who asked the cameramen to keep an eye on the Aussie players.

As per the reports in The Daily Star, Fanie de Villiers remarked that he felt something was wrong with the Australian bowling. He noted that it was surprising to see the Australian team getting the reverse swing before the 30th over. Hence, it was obvious that they were using some different tactics than the others.

“I said earlier on, that if they could get reverse swing in the 26th, 27th, 28th over then they are doing something different from what everyone else does. We actually said to our cameramen, ‘go out [and] have a look, boys. They’re using something’,” Fanie de Villiers told RSN Radio.

“They searched for an hour and a half until they saw something and then they started following Bancroft and they actually caught him out at the end. It’s impossible for the ball to get altered like that on cricket wickets where we knew there was grass on, not a Pakistani wicket where there’s cracks every centimetre,” he added further.

Using different tactics

He further explained his point citing that the track was not an unusual one that would have yielded support to the bowlers. It was an ordinary track. Hence, watching the bowlers get so much assistance from the track was puzzling indeed. Fanie de Villiers noted that in order to get immediate results in terms of reverse swing, the ball has to come in contact with iron or steel, or anything rough and hard in general.

“We’re talking about a grass-covered wicket where you have to do something else to alter the shape, to alter the roughness of the ball on the one side. You have to get the one side wetter, heavier than the other side,” noted de Villiers.

“Australian teams getting reverse swing before the 30th over, they had to do something. If you use a cricket ball and scratch it against a normal iron or steel gate or anything, anything steel on it, it reverse swings immediately. That’s the kind of extra alteration you need to do,” he added.

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