Flashpoints of 2018: sandpaper fiasco forces Australia to atone

Ball-tampering in Cape Town led to sacking of captain Steve Smith and two other players and a softening of macho cultureTo some, scratching a cricket ball would be innocuous rather than infamous. But when the Australian batsman Cameron Bancroft did it during a Test match in Cape Town, the cricket world lit up. At the height of a viciously tempered series he used bright yellow sandpaper to rough up the leather in an attempt to aid his bowlers. Ball-tampering is a fact of cricket, but no internati