"The Ball Tempering Saga : Recent Cricket Blunder in the history of Cricket Australia."

The scandal shook the cricketing world when Steven Smith and David Warner came up with what was happened to be an unethical decision of tampering the ball to gain an upper hand in the test match against South Africa when the bowlers failed to get reverse swing or any sideways movement and also did not get any assistance from the pitch only leading to ruin their careers and faced the dire consequences which they never would have realised in the future.

The incident took place during the Third Test match against South Africa in Cape Town when Cameron Bancroft was caught by television cameras trying to rough up one side of the ball with sandpaper to make it swing in flight while Captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner were found to be involved and all three received unprecedented lengthy bans from international and domestic cricket from Cricket Australia. Steve Smith and David Warner were given one year ban, while Cameron Bancroft was given 9 months of ban. This scandal saw Darren Lehmann step down from his role following the scandal from being a coach and Steve Smith would be replaced by Tim Paine in test matches as a wicket keeper captain until his ban. 

It was 24^thMarch 2018, on the verge of lunch on the third day of the third Test match when Bancroft was shown on the television coverage and the screen on the ground hiding the object in the front of his trousers. The umpires then approached the guilty Cameroon, the former Australian Batsmen that started the ball tempering saga when Bancroft had shown a dark micro fibre sunglass pouch from his pocket. The umpires then inspected the ball, and chose not to offer the ball to the South African team and also replace it if they wished or award them five penalty runs under the Laws of cricket. It was also found that ball's shape had not been changed or tempered with in any case after the investigation.

At the press conference after the end of the day's play, Bancroft admitted that he was shown attempting to alter the condition of the ball using a short length of yellow adhesive tape to which dirt and grit had adhered, forming an abrasive surface 5 days later, and after an investigation into the incident by Cricket Australia, he admitted it was sandpaper, which cricketers use to maintain their bats. At the end of Day 3 press conference Australia's captain, Steve Smith, admitted that he knew of the plan in advance of Bancroft's actions and also went on to say that the plan was made during the lunch break which involved the vice - captain David Warner too. After which Smith was charged with a "conduct of a serious nature that is contrary to the spirit of the game".

Smith accepted the charges made against him with courage as he had full faith and trust in himself that he cannot do any wrong, being responsible captain he accepted the failure on his part  and was also proposed sanction of two suspension points, which equated as a ban for the next Test match, four demerit points being added to his record and was also fined 100% of his match fee.  The "guilty" Bancroft too accepted the charge against him without any issues and was handed three demerit points and fined 75% of his match fee. On 27 March 2018, Sutherland announced that as a result of the preliminary investigation Smith, Warner and Bancroft had been charged with bringing the game into disrepute, suspended and would sent back home. Renshaw, the opening batsman Joe Burns and all-rounder Glenn Maxwell were added to the squad to replace them, and confirmed that Tim Paine had been appointed as the captain for the fourth Test. There was no announcement about the vacant vice-captain position after the announcement of Tim Paine as the Captain, barring to that neither Smith or Warner would play or captain their respective sides .i.e. Rajasthan Royals and Sunrises Hyderabad in the IPL 2018.