Big screen images of sandpaper tampering left Cummins sick

Cricket365
May 24, 2018

Australia fast bowler Pat Cummins has revealed that he felt ill when he saw the images of Cameron Bancroft concealing a piece of sandpaper in his trousers during the third Test against South Africa.

Cummins had completed an excellent spell on the day nabbing the wicket of Hashim Amla but at that moment Australia got a kick in the teeth.

The quick told cricket.com.au: “I remember seeing what happened up on the big screen and just getting a sick feeling in my stomach and just thought, ‘Oh no, what’s going on here? What’s going to happen?’

“At the time, I thought this event that’s just happened, it does have precedent around the world, it has happened a few times before.

“Never in Australia, but you kind of know what happens – an ICC sanction gets handed down.”

The darkest day in Australia's cricket history. #SandpaperGate pic.twitter.com/P4RmNofPRX

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 26, 2018

As in the first two Tests Australia were competing well on the first two days in another heated contest but that moment would come to define the series and took the fight out of the tourist.

Cummins said: “The Cape Town Test was really good the first two days.

“It was good, hard cricket and it was a pretty even contest. It’s a great ground, Newlands. The pitch was good, it felt like a really good game.

“Then from day three onwards it was such a different match.”

It would only be the next day that the magnitude of the reaction to the incident was brought home on those in the team.

“You know it’s big news but don’t really know the magnitude,” Cummins said.

“Then the next morning when I woke up and checked my phone, that’s when it hit me. That’s when the reaction was unprecedented. We’d never seen anything like it before.

“It really took us out of the bubble about being on tour.

“I mean, we had the Prime Minister on the news giving his opinion on the situation, and ex-players and politicians, movie stars, and everyone.

“We just thought, ‘Hang on, we’re just cricketers playing a little cricket game over here in Cape Town’ and suddenly this has just blown up all around the world.

“Suddenly everyone at home, who’s maybe not even following the cricket or mates who don’t watch that much cricket, are checking in going, ‘Mate, hope you’re OK’.

“That’s when the magnitude hit me and from there I just remember a really awful week … just a really tough week, especially on the three guys that put their hand up.

“I really felt for them and everyone trying to look after each other for that week, it was a pretty dark place.”