What made South Africa so suspicious? Well, there was a strange request by the Australian camp before the series began to turn down the volume on the stump mics. The inference was that the tourists were planning a confrontational approach in the middle, but the request was a “surefire way of making sure it stays turned up”, one commentator later told The Australian. It put the entire broadcast booth on alert.
Then there was the devastating swing Australia’s bowlers generated during the first Test in Durban, when Mitchell Starc had the ball on a string. There was no evidence Australia had tampered, but something didn’t feel right to South Africa captain Faf du Plessis, and for the rest of the series he kept a pair of binoculars in his bag.
