The Cape Town ball-tampering saga is far from cricket’s first. Cameron Bancroft and Steven Smith’s confessions were the latest in a string of revelations made over the years, but what made it different is the timing, an instant acceptance forced by all the video evidence against them. Here are seven times when cricketers have confessed to ball-tampering, often by far more vicious methods than the use of sandpaper.

Long before reverse swing in the 1980s.. ..there were Arthur Mailey and Ted McDonald
Mailey, a legspinner who played for Australia in the 1920s, admitted to tampering with the seam of the ball using resin and bird-lime in his tell-all autobiography, 10 for 66 and all that, published in 1958
In a separate chapter titled “Tinkering with the rules”, Mailey explained how he repeatedly used foreign substances to help lift the seam, “a peculiarity which allows the new ball to swerve more than an old one on which the stitches have been battered flat”
Mailey was once caught cheating by England captain Johnny Douglas, but on immediately looking at the latter’s thumbnail being worn to the bone on the outside, found out that he had been lifting the seams too. The matter was settled then and there

John Lever and vaseline-gate – When the physio’s tip toppled India on their own turf
1. During England’s tour to India in 1976-77, John Lever, the Essex left-arm bowler, swung the first Test England’s way, taking ten wickets in Feroze Shah Kotla.
2. By the third Test, India were down 0-2, and had barely worked out how to get past England’s seamers. The England team physio proposed a solution for his bowlers to deal with the heat: strips of Vaseline-soaked gauze stuck on their brows to prevent the perspiration from dripping down their faces.
3. Lever at one point took off his gauze and threw it on the ground, after which it was seized upon by the umpire. Bishan Bedi, the Indian captain, alleged that the bowler had, in effect engaged in ball-tampering – not only in the game underway, but also in Delhi, thus deriving the swing that destroyed India in both Tests.
4. England for their part said that while there had been a technical breach of the law, the offence was totally unintentional

Chris Pringle’s bottle-top wizardry in Faisalabad
New Zealand beat Pakistan at their own reverse-swing game
1. After his side was outdone in the first two Tests on the tour of Pakistan in the autumn of 1990, mostly by prodigious reverse swing, New Zealand bowler Chris Pringle took matters into his own hands.
2. On the first morning of the final Test in Faisalabad, Pringle decided to put to use what he had learned while experimenting in the nets. He cut an old bottle top into quarters and covered the serrated edge with tape, leaving a sharp point exposed.
3. At the first drinks interval the umpires did not ask to look at the ball, and with Pakistan making sedate progress, Pringle began to scratch the ball with the masked bottle top. The results were almost immediate. Pakistan crashed from 35 for 0 to 102 all out and Pringle finished with his best Test figures of 7 for 52.

Imran Khan’s “bottle top” revelations ..and the fallout that ensued
1. In Ivo Tennant’s 1994 biography of him, Imran Khan confessed to having used a bottle top to alter the condition of the ball during a Sussex v Hampshire game in the 1981 county season
2. He later regretted his confession, since it brought him notoriety, instead of his intended purpose of bringing wider attention to rampant ball tampering across cricket

Marcus, Murray Mints, magic
The sweet secret behind England’s Ashes reverse
1. By Ashes 2005, Marcus Trescothick had fashioned himself as the premier spit-shiner in the English side. He found they worked wonders on the Dukes ball used in England, and was designated as the one to work on the ball through the series.
2. Players with sweaty hands were excluded and throws on the bounce banned once the ball was in the right state. Keep the rough side dry and the shiny side pristine.
3. The result was a series of unplayable spells from the likes of Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones throughout the series, as England regained the Ashes after nearly two decades.

Shoaib Akhtar’s explosive post-retirement revelations – Controversially yours.. and how!
1. “Almost all Pakistani fast bowlers have tampered with the ball. I may be the first one to openly admit to it but everybody is doing it”, said Shoaib Akhtar in his autobiography, Controversially Yours, months after retiring from international cricket
2. He went on to admit that he had “tampered with the ball on many occasions”, despite knowing that it was against the laws of the game
3. “There are so many ways to prepare the ball; it’s not just a matter of scratching it. I have used my boot nails and zip of my back pocket. Many bowlers, use vaseline or gum on the ball. The only way to stop this is for the ICC to ensure that at least some pitches are prepared in favour of bowlers”, confessed Akhtar.

Mark Richardson’s “concrete” confessions
1. In the aftermath of the Cameron Bancroft ball-tampering incident, Mark Richardson, the former New Zealand opener, turned out on a local radio show, calling the Australians “slow learners”, calling David Warner “Davey dumb dumb”
2. When pressed by the show’s hosts to reveal his own “cheating” history, he went on to confess that he had once rubbed the cricket ball on a piece of concrete while playing for Otago.
3. Asked if he had ever tampered with the ball for New Zealand, Richardson mentioned that he was “always under the helmet at short-leg and the other guys did the retrieving”

Article courtesy – espncrininfo,com