BBC asks fans to rank Test cricket scandals before Australia's South Africa return

BBC Sport has asked readers to rank ten scandals selected by a Test Match Special panel, opening a poll as Australia prepares for its first Test series in South Africa since the 2018 Cape Town ball-tampering scandal. The vote will show how readers order the panel's choices; it will not settle which episode was historically the most consequential.

The BBC says the results will be revealed on the Test Match Special podcast. Its published feature does not give a vote total, closing date or final ranking. Readers are being asked to assess a set of episodes chosen in advance by the panel, rather than nominate incidents from across the whole history of Test cricket.

A return to South Africa

Australia's first Test of the South Africa tour is scheduled to begin in Durban on 9 October. Cricket Australia's published tour schedule also lists matches in Gqeberha from 18 October and Cape Town from 27 October. The Cape Town Test is set for Newlands, where the 2018 ball-tampering incident took place. As of 29 September, the tour and the poll result are still ahead.

Cricket Australia's February schedule report described the trip as Australia's first Test series in South Africa in eight years. That interval gives the Cape Town match a particular historical resonance: Australia's previous Test visit became a crisis over the team's conduct, leading to the removal of senior players from the tour and a wider examination of Australian cricket.

Why Cape Town remains in the conversation

Cricket Australia announced that Smith and vice-captain David Warner would stand down from those roles. In an apology to supporters reported by the International Cricket Council, then chief executive James Sutherland said the admitted conduct fell outside the laws and spirit of cricket. His statement treated the incident as a question of the team's integrity, not simply an on-field breach.

The response continued after that announcement. On 27 March 2018, the ICC reported that Cricket Australia was sending Smith, Warner and Bancroft home following preliminary findings. Sutherland said significant sanctions were being considered and announced an independent review of the conduct and culture of Australia's men's teams. The BBC says coach Darren Lehmann later resigned; the earlier ICC account had said he would continue at that stage.

Cricket Australia's tour report says Smith and Warner received year-long bans, while Bancroft served a nine-month suspension. The report also notes that some players from the 2018 tour have since returned to Cape Town for a Twenty20 international, but Australia has not played a Test series in South Africa during that period. The scheduled return therefore revisits a ground closely associated with the scandal, rather than marking every player's first trip back.

What else is on the ballot

The BBC's selections span very different kinds of controversy. They include England's Bodyline tactics on the 1932–33 tour of Australia; the cancellation of England's 1968 South Africa tour after Basil D'Oliveira was selected; and the disruption caused by Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. The panel also includes the 1975 Headingley pitch vandalism, the Mike Gatting–Shakoor Rana confrontation and Michael Atherton's 1994 ball-tampering row.

Other choices concern Hansie Cronje's match-fixing, the forfeiture of the 2006 Oval Test between England and Pakistan, and the spot-fixing case involving Pakistan players in 2010. The range matters when interpreting the eventual vote: readers will be comparing disputes over tactics and governance with corruption cases and incidents that changed individual careers. The BBC has presented these as candidates for a reader ranking, without publishing a common measure of their impact.

The immediate result to watch is the audience ranking when Test Match Special releases it. Separately, Australia's scheduled October Tests will bring the team back to South Africa and, finally, to Newlands. Neither the poll nor the tour can change what happened in 2018, but both explain why the Cape Town episode is again being discussed alongside older controversies in the game's history.