For Pat Cummins’ men to enter the pantheon of the absolute great Australian teams, they must return to the scene of the team’s darkest day and taste success in South Africa.

That is the reality that awaits Australia’s men’s cricket team over the next four weeks, as they return for the first Test series in South Africa since the ball-tampering scandal.

Australia’s players have done well in recent years to shift the narrative from the events of March 24, 2018, in Cape Town and the fallout that followed “sandpaper-gate”.

Having been on the nose with much of the Australian public after invoking the public disdain of then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, Cummins and co have very much become “the nation’s side” again.

But try as they might over the next month, the scars of the preceding South African Test tour are set to be picked at again, again and again across this tour.

It will dominate talk in the lead-up to Friday’s first Test in Durban, and reach a crescendo when the series wraps in Cape Town from October 27.

Australia’s players are desperate to focus elsewhere and, rightly, know the bigger picture at play.

A victory in this series would be the perfect start to three big tours in 10 months, with a Border-Gavaskar Trophy and Ashes series awaiting.

This team is rightly regarded as one the greatest in Australia’s proud cricketing history, having sat atop the world rankings for 2½ years and twice retained the Ashes in England.

Wins in these three away series would make for arguably the finest 12 months in Australia’s Test history, cementing this side’s legacy as one of the nation’s absolute elite.

But South African crowds and local media are unlikely to let them forget what happened in Cape Town eight years ago, with five Australians from that day still in the current squad.

The South African crowds are unlikely to let the Australians off easily. Photo: AAP

What still stands out, to good judges watching the scandal erupt like former Test captain Allan Border, was the sheer brazenness of the Australian team that led to Cameron Bancroft being caught red-handed with bright yellow sandpaper.

Senior figures had been warned earlier in the series by Brendon Julian that broadcasters were tracking Australia’s every movement, keen to catch players out.

“It was just stupid,” Border, who was on tour commentating with Julian, said.

“These cameras, they can zoom in. Like you can see the stitches on the ball, clearly. So if you’ve got anything in your hand scraping it [it’ll be seen].

“It’s one thing scrapping it with your fingernail, bowlers have been doing that sort of stuff forever. But taking foreign objects out there to scratch the ball, that’s taken it to the next level. That’s not acceptable.”

Questions still remain over the handling of the affair in the hours that followed, and Steve Smith fronting a press conference to declare it was a decision of the team’s “leadership group”.

Bancroft was caught red-handed with bright yellow sandpaper. Photo: AAP

By the next morning, Smith had been replaced as captain, David Warner was painted as the villain and left the team’s WhatsApp group, with Bancroft to join the pair in flying home before the next Test.

Border, for his part, remains adamant Australia was not the only team involved in the dark arts of ball tampering through that series.

Australian cricket’s effective godfather is like many in cricket who take the view that any player who claims they have never scratched, tampered or applied sunscreen to a ball is telling fibs.

“Every man and his dog knew that it wasn’t just us,” Border, who will be part of Fox Sports’ broadcast of this upcoming series, said.

“South Africa were getting the ball to reverse swing after 20-odd overs and the wickets weren’t that abrasive,” he said.

“They were maybe a bit smarter.”

Border said he spoke to the umpires, who told him after that game that “the South African ball was in worse condition than the Australian ball”.

Australia, as a team, is now in a far better place than it was in early 2018.

Warner has detailed conversations that occurred in the years before the Cape Town meltdown, including claiming bosses told the side they were paid to win, and not just play.

That 2018 series in South Africa remains one of the ugliest of any since Bodyline, with stairwell stoushes, Kagiso Rabada avoiding a ban for mid-pitch contact on Steve Smith and crowd abuse of Warner.

Warner received a rocky reception in both South Africa and back home. Photo: AAP

The nature of franchise cricket means the two sides are now much closer, and there was no ill will when they met in the 2025 World Test Championship final or the 2022-23 summer.

The year-long bans handed to Smith and Warner by Cricket Australia, along with the nine-month suspension for Bancroft, also still stand out as anomalies.

No player before or since has copped such a lengthy suspension for ball-tampering – or their involvement in it and what CA dubbed conduct that is “contrary to the spirit of the game”.

Most tamperers copped a slap on the wrist, including South Africa’s captain from that series Faf du Plessis, twice through his career.

But these were the reactions of a CA administration that felt obliged to come down hard with bans and an organisation-wide cultural review, with a groundswell of public criticism that even reached Turnbull’s office.

The footage of Smith being paraded through Johannesburg airport remains one of the enduring images of the affair, along with the ex-captain’s tearful press conference back home.

As the sole remaining member of the suspended trio, Smith will no doubt be the lightning rod for much of the tour.

But as Josh Hazlewood pointed out last month, that may only play into the 37-year-old’s hands, given he averaged 110.57 while being baited by English fans on his return in the 2019 Ashes.

Border believes Smith has “some unfinished business” in South Africa.

“He’ll want to just really make as many runs as he can. And if they poke the bear by taunts and stuff, he could become a real thorn in their side,” Border says.

“If he’s got that laser focus, he becomes doubly difficult. And he’s a great player anyway.”

If Smith does that, Australia could be on the way to its best overseas series victory since a 2014 tour of South Africa.

And Cummins’ side will be one step closer to locking in its legacy piece ahead of a home summer against New Zealand and trips to India then England.

-AAP