Don’t Think Anybody Is Surprised That More Than Three People Knew About Ball Tampering: Clarke

Former Australian captain Michael Clarke has said that nobody is surprised that more than three players knew about the ball-tampering including the bowlers. 

After more than three years of the 'sandpaper gate', the case has been once again opened after Cameron Bancroft, who was caught rubbing the illegal substance on the ball, said that it was 'self-explanatory' that bowlers knew about what was going on. 

Yeah, look, all I wanted to do was to be responsible and accountable for my own actions and part. Yeah, obviously what I did benefits bowlers, and the awareness around that, probably, is self-explanatory," Bancroft told The Guardian interviewer Donald McRae. 

Reacting to the bowlers' part, Clarke said that bowlers had to know about the ball-tampering since they have got to hold it. 

“They’ve got to hold the ball to bowl with it,” Clarke said on his Sky Sports Radio Big Breakfast show. “So, if there’s sandpaper being rubbed on the ball they have to get the ball back to the bowler and the bowler has to hang on to it before he lets it go.”

Explaining his comment, the former Australian captain said: “I can tell you now if you went and grabbed a pen, just a pen and put a little ‘1’ somewhere on my cricket bat; on top of the handle, on the edge of the bat, on the toe of the bat, on the face, under the grip, anywhere, just a little number one, I would have noticed." 

“If you are playing sport at the highest level you know your tools that good it’s not funny." 

Michael Clarke also took a dig at the newspaper articles for being 'surprised' about people knowing about the ball-tampering on the field in Cape Town, South Africa during the third test. 

“I love how the articles in the paper are ‘it is such a big surprise that Cameron Bancroft has made a …’ Actually if you read his quotes it is not what he did say as what he didn’t say in regards to other people knowing about sandpaper gate,” he said.

“What’s the surprise? That more than three people knew? I don’t think anybody who has played the game of cricket or knows a little bit about cricket would know that in a team like that, at the highest level, when the ball is such an important part of the game."