Proteas bowler Lungi Ngidi has dismissed allegations by ex-Australian skipper Tim Paine that they were involved in ball-tampering during the infamous ‘Sandpapergate’ Test series.
Cape Town — The Proteas are well-versed in dealing with controversies at ICC T20 World Cups and Lungi Ngidi believes the latest ball-tampering allegations revealed in Faf du Plessis and Tim Paine’s autobiographies have had no impact on the team in Australia.
The duo were the captains of the Proteas and Australian teams during the 2018 “Sandpapergate” Test series in South Africa.
Paine had, of course, only been promoted during the acrimonious third Test at Newlands when then-captain Steven Smith admitted his team had tampered with the ball on third evening after opening batter Cameron Bancroft was earlier caught on camera attempting to put a yellow object down his trousers.
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Smith and vice-captain David Warner stood down on the fourth morning leaving Paine to lead the side for the remainder of the Newlands Test and the subsequent final Test at the Wanderers a week later.
Du Plessis has detailed a sequence of events leading up to that fateful moment, but Paine has now responded with allegations of his own that South Africa were also guilty of tampering with the ball at the Wanderers.
“I saw it happen in the fourth Test of that series,” Paine alleges in his book The Price Paid. “Think about that. After everything that had happened in Cape Town, after all the headlines and bans and carry on.
“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.”
Ngidi, who was part of the Proteas squad at the time, dismissed any suggestion that the revisiting of these incidents, which occurred four years ago, had any bearing on the team’s challenge at the on-going T20 World Cup in Australia.
“We haven’t spoken about that and the stuff that the guys are writing is in their own books,” Ngidi said.
“We’ll see it when we have a chance to read it, but our focus is here and we’re brushing past those things.
“I don’t find it strange though because it was always going to be spoken about at some point. Guys are retiring and they’re writing books and sharing their stories, so it was bound to come back.
“It’s come back at a time when there’s a lot of media around the tournament, so it does highlight that sort of situation.
“In terms of distracting us, I don’t think it has and it has nothing to do with us right now.”
Ngidi didn’t play in any of the four Test matches in 2018, but he was involved in another major flashpoint during the series when he was caught on the Kingsmead staircase during Warner’s altercation with South African wicket-keeper/batter Quinton de Kock at tea time on the fourth day of the first Test.
The Proteas are due to face Bangladesh in their second match of the tournament in Sydney on Thursday morning (5am start).
