Former Australia spinner Stuart MacGill has made a surprising admission about ball-tampering, revealing that he used sandpaper to alter the condition of the ball during his international career. MacGill, who played 44 Tests and three ODIs between 1998 and 2008, said such practices were not viewed as a major cheating scandal at the time.
The former leg-spinner made the revelation during a discussion with fellow Australians Steve O’Keefe and Moises Henriques on a FanaticsTV YouTube show. The conversation was about Usman Khawaja’s recent claims in his autobiography regarding Australia’s 2018 ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.
Khawaja had claimed that the entire Australian team knew about the plan, rather than just Cameron Bancroft, David Warner and Steve Smith. Warner has also backed his former teammate’s account.
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Stuart MacGill Reveals How He Used Sandpaper On Cricket Ball
During the discussion, O’Keefe and Henriques spoke about different methods players had used to tamper with the ball over the years. MacGill then shared his own experience and explained how he secretly used sandpaper during matches.
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“I’d cut a small piece of sandpaper and tape it to my thumb,” MacGill said.
He explained that he would wait until the tea break before using the sandpaper to scratch the ball. According to him, the umpires would leave the ball near the boundary before players returned to the field.
“I would tape a little bit of a square of sandpaper on my thumb, pick the ball up just after tea, scratch the living daylights out of it, pull the sandpaper off, chuck it in the gutter before a ball had even been bowled. So nobody even knew that I’d done it, apart from all the scratches on the ball,” he added.
MacGill also made it clear that he did not see his actions as part of any organised cheating operation.
“It was not a part of a massive ‘global cheating scam’; I was just really curious to see what would happen and if it would work. And oh, it works,” he said.
MacGill Says Ball-Tampering Was Common During His Playing Days
The former Australia spinner also suggested that ball-tampering was not unusual during his playing career. He recalled other incidents involving sandpaper and even revealed that one of his teams had experimented with keeping the match ball in a freezer to see how it affected its condition.
MacGill said players often justified such practices because they believed their opponents were doing the same thing.
“It probably has been (ball tampering going on since the early days of Test cricket) because it’s just getting a competitive advantage, right?” he said.
“And because we know that everybody’s doing it, it doesn’t feel so bad. Like if I’m playing against South Africa, I know that they’ve done everything that I’ve done; I don’t feel bad about it,” he added.
MacGill’s Admission Brings 2018 Ball-Tampering Scandal Back Into Focus
MacGill’s comments have brought fresh attention to Australia’s infamous 2018 ball-tampering scandal during their tour of South Africa.
The controversy erupted when Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera using sandpaper on the ball during the Cape Town Test. Steve Smith and David Warner were also punished for their roles in the incident, with the trio receiving bans from Cricket Australia.
Khawaja’s recent claims about how much the team knew about the plan have once again sparked debate around the incident.
Interestingly, the Australian players who have recently addressed the controversy, including Mitchell Starc, have denied knowing that sandpaper was being used on the field when Bancroft was caught. However, the wider question of how much the team knew about ball-tampering has remained a talking point.