Tim Paine has accused South Africa of ball tampering in the match after Australian cricket was rocked by a scandal of their own. Back in 2018, Australia were caught tampering with the ball with the use of sand paper and tape during during a Test match against South Africa in Cape Town.
Australian cricket was left disgraced, with ex-captain Steve Smith and batsmen David Warner and Cameron Bancroft all handed hefty bans after for their part in the episode. Smith was replaced by Paine as skipper and discussed the saga in his autobiography The Paid Price.
The rule-break was unearthed after a clip of Bancroft rubbing the ball against a piece of tape was panned across the big screens at Newlands. After a radio silence, Bancroft and Smith held a press conference where they admitted to their foul play.
The players at fault were then sent home from the tour, where they once again appeared in front of the world's media and apologised. During Smith's press conference address, the Aussie star broke down in tears as he was stripped of the captaincy.
Four years on though, Paine believes he saw the South Africans also tamper with the ball in the very next match, but the evidence was hidden by the TV director who exposed Bancroft. He wrote: "I saw it [tampering] 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 [Bancroft], 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."
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It was a dramatic series for the Australians, which also included a confrontation between Warner and South Africa's Quinton De Kock, where the former accused the latter of making a comment about his wife. Describing the clash Paine wrote in his book: "I was the one holding them apart and I know how it unfolded.
"I don't know how [Warner] kept his cool in those situations and on reflection I feel the team let him down by not offering him more support. I can see now he was masking a lot of pain and we should have known it."
