Salman Butt refuses to believe Australian bowlers after they claim innocence in Sandpaper Gate Saga

The 2018 Sandpaper gate scandal has been one of the trending topics in the cricket world lately. The dark episode of Australian cricket dug up after Cameron Bancroft, in an interview, hinted that bowlers had the knowledge of him tampering the ball. Following this, the Aussie bowling quartet from the infamous 2018 Cape Town Test released a joint statement claiming they were not aware of the tactics.

However, former Pakistan captain Salman Butt has refused to believe that the bowlers were innocent. Nathan Lyon, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc formed Australia’s bowling attack in that game. In the statement, the quartet made it clear that they didn’t know about any foreign substance being taken to the field to alter the condition of the ball.

Contrary to their claim, Butt believes that not only the bowlers but the entire dressing room must have been a part of the plot.

The entire dressing room must have been involved: Salman Butt

“It is not true that the bowl is reverse (swinging) and the bowlers do not know. There are players in the team who are responsible for making sure the bowlers get reverse swing. The aim is to keep it as shiny as possible and keep rubbing it over the passage of time and after a point, the ball starts to reverse. Hence, it is not possible for the team or the dressing room to know that the ball is not reversing,” the former Pakistan opener said on his YouTube channel.

For the unversed, Bancroft was found guilty of attempting to tamper the ball with sandpaper during that Test. The Australia skipper at that time Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner also accepted being part of the plan. Subsequently, the trio faced bans, with Smith and Warner losing their leadership roles. However, Butt is astonished by the fact that three batsmen faced punishments while all the bowlers escaped.

“Bancroft was preparing the ball. Steve Smith, the captain, knew, and even David Warner was involved. All those punished were batsmen but not even a single bowler was punished. I commend the people who made these decisions, I mean the ball is reverse swinging, the case is of ball-tampering and punishments have been given out. But no one paid attention to those who were actually bowling with it,” Salman Butt added.

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