Tim Paine alleges South Africa were ball-tampering straight after sand paper scandal

Former Australia captain Tim Paine has sensationally accused South Africa of ball-tampering during the infamous 2018 Test series that prompted the sandpaper-gate scandal.

Australian players Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were all heavily sanctioned for their parts in an affair which threw Australian cricket into crisis after Bancroft was caught by attempting to rough up one side of the ball to produce swing during the series’ Cape Town Test.

However, in his new autobiography ‘The Price Paid’, released today, Paine claimed South Africa were themselves guilty of a similar offence in the next Test in Johannesburg.

"I was standing at the bowlers’ end in the next test when a shot came up on the screen of a South African player at mid-off having a huge crack at the ball,” Paine, who stepped down last year, wrote.

"We went to the umpires about it, which might seem a bit poor, but we’d been slaughtered and were convinced they’d been up to it since the first test.

"But the footage got lost. As it would."