South Africa coach: Australia's win-at-all-costs mentality led to tampering

South Africa coach Ottis Gibson believes that Australia's win-at-all-costs mentality is what led them to tamper with the ball during the third Test at Newlands, an action that has left the Australian camp in disarray ahead of the series decider at the Wanderers this week. Australia already know that they will be without captain Steve Smith because of an ICC ban when the fourth Test begins on Friday (March 30), but Cameron Bancroft and David Warner are also vulnerable as Cricket Australia completes its own investigations into the affair.

Bancroft was caught on camera using a piece of sticky tape with rough granules on it to roughen up one side of the ball during the third Test, which South Africa ultimately won by 322 runs. However the offence became more serious when Smith admitted the ploy had been cooked up by the team's "leadership group" during lunch on the third day, when Australia were in danger of being batted out of the game. South Africa were 65 for one at that point, leading by 121 runs in the second innings.

Reflecting on the incident as South Africa prepared to fly to Johannesburg on Tuesday morning, Gibson pointed back to the reasoning given throughout the series by Australia's players for their aggressive on-field behaviour, and suggested that this mantra had come back to bite them.

"The Aussies have said themselves that the brand of cricket they play is to win at all costs, and when you have that mindset... When you look at the Ashes, they were never really behind in many of the games. They won quite comfortably. Here they were behind a couple of times and perhaps that desperation came into it for them. It's a shame that something like this had to happen for them to have a look at themselves. We just leave that to them and we'll focus on winning the next game."

But while Gibson was cutting in his assessment of how Australia got themselves into the current mess, he did not attempt to claim the moral high ground when it came to roughing the ball up to gain reverse swing. Perhaps mindful of the way that Warner's sanctimonious comments during Mintgate have been dug up and shared widely on social media in South Africa this week - not to mention the Proteas' own record of tampering - the South African camp have steered clear of grand pronouncements on their own treatment of the ball.

"Every team since the beginning of reverse swing, everybody tries to get the ball reversing," said Gibson, who has worked with both England and the West Indies over the course of a decade in international coaching. "They skim it in, they bounce it in, they try and get it rough. The spinner gets his hand in the dirt and rubs it on the ball. Everybody has a way of getting the ball to go a little bit further. Because the ball will reverse naturally and then everybody has a way of trying to get it going a little bit further. Maybe a bit of desperation, because obviously they were behind the game at that stage, caused them to take that a step further, and it's unfortunate."

Although Smith insisted that Darren Lehmann was not in on the ploy - despite television coverage suggesting that the Australia coach was involved in an attempted cover-up - Lehmann's position is now in jeopardy. Asked about the prospect of the Proteas employing similar tactics while he is coach, Gibson said: "Look I would hope that it never happens under my watch. I'm not going to sit here and say that we're whiter than white or anything, but we'll try and play the game within the rules of the game. We know where the rules are, and the imaginary line that we talked about for the whole series, we feel like we know where that is and we'll try not to cross the line."

Many experienced figures in cricket have called for the rule to be changed to allow the fielding team to alter the ball as they wish. As a former bowler himself Gibson was not willing to give an outright opinion on that matter, but said that ball tampering fell among a long list of items that he feels the ICC need to look at.

"The ICC, that's one for them," he said. "With what has just happened, (Kagiso) Rabada brushed shoulders with Steve Smith and he could have been banned for two games, and you look at this situation. The rules say that he gets four demerit points on one game, which makes it seem a little bit weird that something so trivial on Rabada's side and something so serious on Smith's side and the punishment doesn't seem to match. But the ICC are custodians of the game, so we keep hearing, and they will have to sit down and look at processes and see if it makes sense."

Another issue up for debate was the role of the host broadcaster, who not only captured the sequence of events but also broadcast it immediately. Shortly after the footage emerged, experienced broadcast director Hemant Buch tweeted: "The first rule of tampering with the ball is to do it only when you play at home and the broadcaster has your back."

Gibson admitted that he could not recall a home team being done for tampering in his time in international cricket, but denied that Australia had been stitched up. "I think the host broadcaster just did their job and they did it very well. It seemed like they saw something a little bit untoward and they were diligent in doing their job. We're obviously very proud of SuperSport and the job that they did.

"I don't know who the cameraman was, but a lot of those cameramen have been doing this cricket thing for a long time so he sees something that looked untoward and he follows it. A lot of the time the camera follows the ball, so it was probably unfortunate for Bancroft that the ball was with him at the time and the cameraman was following the ball and there you go - we have a story. But it's unfortunate for Test cricket, there's been so much talk about Test cricket recently that it is obviously very unfortunate for cricket."

Shortly after Bancroft's suspicious behaviour had been captured by SuperSport and played on television, on-field umpires Nigel Llong and Richard Illingworth inspected the ball and decided that its condition had not been changed. As a result, a five-run penalty was not applied - something which surprised South Africa. "The rule says if the umpires feel the condition of the ball has changed, that's when they award a five-run penalty, and they said they didn't feel the condition had been altered even though TV showed something was being done to the ball. That's their job.," said Gibson.

The West Indian went further, suggesting that a stronger batch of umpires could have been supplied for a series that was always likely to hold its fair share of controversy. This comes on the back of the first Test, when South Africa felt that then-umpires Kumar Dharmasena and S Ravi were not bold enough in tempering Australia's aggressive behaviour.

"From the start of the series I said that any series that involves Australia and South Africa, England and India, those series need the best umpires, the strong umpires, and that's something for the ICC to look at," he said.

(CRICBUZZ)