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‘The Boys Cheated’ - Justin Langer Opens Up On Sandpaper Gate Horror 7 Years Later
Follow UsLanger recalled the brutal effect the Sandpaper Gate had on Australian cricket
Seven-and-a-half years ago, Australian cricket endured its most disgraceful moment in history as the team was caught cheating on camera, using a foreign object to tamper with the ball in the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town. While rookie Cameron Bancroft got caught rubbing sandpaper on the ball, it was later revealed that David Warner and Steve Smith were both co-conspirators.
The ugly aftermath sent Australian cricket into crisis as not only did the three aforementioned players get banned, but heads rolled big time, with even head coach Darren Lehmann resigning.
It was under this backdrop that Justin Langer took over as head coach of the Australian team in May 2018, with the sole intention of rebuilding Australian cricket from scratch.
In the ‘For the Love of Cricket’ podcast with Stuart Broad and Jos Buttler, Langer, seven years on, recalled the Sandpaper Gate horror.
“In Australia, one thing you don’t do is cheat. You play hard, you go hard, and you compete — but you don’t cheat. And the boys cheated,” Langer said.
“The whole of Australia really turned against them, and the ramifications were huge. We lost the chairman, the CEO, the high-performance manager, the head coach Darren Lehmann stepped down, and the captain and vice-captain were gone. So, in one hit, all of our leadership disappeared.
“In cultures, and in life generally, I believe leadership is the number one aspect of performance. And when that left, the focus shifted to what culture really means — behaviours, expectations, and how we had to turn all of that around.”
Langer recalled the brutal effect the Sandpaper Gate had on the Australian side and Australian cricket overall.
“After Sandpaper gate, the whole of Australia hated the cricket team,” he recalled.
Stepping into a burning house, Langer managed to not just rebuild Australian cricket but find good success while doing that. Under his coaching, Australia won a home Ashes 4-0, retained the urn away in England for the first time in 18 years and also won their maiden T20 World Cup title, back in 2021.