The Table Mountain setting at Newlands in Cape Town provides for one of cricket's prettiest sights. Ironically, South Africa's finest cricket ground witnessed an incident that will go down in the annals as one of the game's biggest and ugliest controversies.

For Australia, which has yet to be accused of match fixing, Saturday's ball tampering controversy involving opening batsman Cameron Bancroft and Captain Steve Smith (also the much talked-about and unidentified leadership group) is far bigger than the Greg Chappell-ordered underarm ball bowled by his brother Trevor against New Zealand in 1981, and more depressing than the abusive sledging instances that crop up from time to time.