Saturday 11 / January / 2025
When we think of the great Australian sporting achievements, it’s easy to be impressed by what the island nation has achieved. They were, after all, one of the best teams in the world, having won the cricket World Cup five times. To beat Australia required something truly special, and teams that beat them often earned the respect and admiration of everyone else. But there was always a shady underside to the manner in which Australia treated their opponents so that they could win.
Sledging, the mind game that every opposition who faced Australia had to be prepared for, was just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless tales shared by the England team of the sheer pressure the Australians would put on them just so that they could get the upper hand in the mental battle and break down their opposition from within.
When other teams resorted to such tactics, though, the Australians would quickly claim they were being unfair. It was a hypocrisy that the other teams hated, a result of which was them fervently hoping that the Aussies would themselves one day know what it was like to be the victims of these underhanded tactics. Much like the Australian boomerang itself, what goes around does eventually come around.
And come around it would: South Africa were hosting Australia as part of a four-match test series, when during the third test, opening batsman and wicketkeeper Cameron Bancroft was caught by cameras to be rubbing the ball with a small yellow object. On being spotted by TV cameras, he quickly snuck the object into the front of his trousers. At the end of the day’s play, Bancroft and then-captain Steve Smith said they had attempted to put yellow adhesive tape on the surface of the ball, to remove an abrasive surface that had been caused due to dirt gathering on it throughout the day.
It was only five days later that Bancroft admitted he’d been using sandpaper – a material used by batsmen to maintain the surface of their bats – to alter the condition of the ball so as to suit his side better.
Now, a new documentary has revealed why Bancroft and Smith did what it is that they did, alongside vice-captain David Warner. Titled Crossing the Line, the documentary was made by South African sports channel SuperSport and lifts the lid on the conditions within the Australian camp that prompted Bancroft to go to such lengths to achieve victory.
Crossing the Line is a cricket documentary that explains in detail the reasons behind the 2018 Australian ball-tampering scandal while in South Africa and is now available to watch online, free of cost.
Things has been heating up well before the ball-tampering incident. The Australians had been irritating their hosts throughout the series, physically fighting with their South African counterparts ahead of the third test, with the International Cricket Council getting involved.
This in-depth documentary analyses what made the Australians – known for their ultra-aggressive, win-at-all-costs approach – go one step too far, as well as the consequences that followed. Featuring in-depth analysis of the hostile situation between the two teams from commentators such as Mike Haysman and Michael Holding, legends such as Allan Border and Shane Warne, as well as former South African players Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith, Crossing the Line provides amazing insight into not just the reasons behind the ball-tampering scandal, but the Australian sporting mentality as a whole.
In the aftermath of the incident, some of Australia’s top officials, including erstwhile Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland, refused to support the unsporting behaviour of their players, and called for the strictest punishments available to be handed down to them.
Smith and Warner were stripped of their respective positions as captain and vice-captain, and both of them, as well as Bancroft, were given 12-month suspensions. While that may have ended the matter there as far as the investigation was concerned, Australian cricket and the nation’s sporting culture is still facing the shame and embarrassment its players brought the nation. For this reason and so many others, Crossing the Line is a brilliant documentary everyone must watch – [email protected]
The Short and Skinny
Name: Crossing the Line
Genre: Sports documentary
Published by: SuperSport
What it’s about: Crossing the Line lifts the lid on the 2018 Australian ball-tampering scandal that rocked the nation and revealed the embarrassing secrets of its sporting culture that brought shame and humiliation to the country on the world’s stage.
Where to watch: YouTube, Showmax, SuperSport TV.
Runtime: 56 minutes
