Fanie de Villiers baffled by fresh Sandpapergate furore

Fanie de Villiers

South African pace great-turned-pundit Fanie de Villiers is struggling to understand the fresh controversy surrounding Sandpapergate, reignited by Australia batter Usman Khawaja's new book.

De Villiers, 62, was the first to suspect that the Australians were tampering with the ball during the 2017-18 Test series against South Africa. His suspicions, raised while working on television coverage, prompted cameramen to scrutinise the footage more closely, eventually catching Cameron Bancroft altering the ball during the third Test in Cape Town.

"I said right from the start that everybody in a team knows. The coach, everybody knows when you do anything on the field. But why do you still want to go that route? Those guys have paid penalties and they've been out. What do you want to achieve now? They [Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft] made a decision then that they were going to take it on the chin for the team. You want the whole team to be under scrutiny again?

"Cricket Australia has said they are not reopening the investigation. Then, what are you trying to achieve? If the whole team knew, then the whole team knew. I feel there's nothing to be achieved by hammering on anymore. I am just glad that everything came out," De Villiers, who took 85 wickets in 18 Tests and 95 in 83 ODIs, told mid-day from South Africa on Wednesday. The former speedster believes the scandal had a positive impact on world cricket, with umpires now stricter about monitoring the ball.

Recalling how he spotted the problem, De Villiers said: "It was easy to work out [that the Aussies were doing something to the ball] because in South Africa, you can't get reverse swing out of a ball within 35 to 40 overs. They [Australians] got the ball to reverse swing, I think, in the late 20th over. The grass covering on the wickets is way too much for the ball to scuff up and become that rough. To understand where reverse swing comes from, it can only be done by wetting one side when the ball is old or scraping one side to make it very rough. The ball wasn't getting rough because the pitches in South Africa have too much grass covering on them. Simple explanation."