Ian Gould still has the balls that featured in the game’s biggest tampering scandal and brought Australian cricket to its knees. As third umpire in that seismic Cape Town Test in March 2018, “Gunner” Gould has the evidence in a London vault, but says you would be surprised if you took a look.

“If you saw the balls, you would get it completely wrong,” says Gould, nicknamed Gunner for his brief time in goal for Arsenal. “At the end of the day, the sandpaper didn’t get on that ball. They were working to get the ball to be pristine. Once they’d got one side bigger and shinier, that’s when the sandpaper was coming in.”

Gould’s recollections of one of cricket’s greatest scandals are shot through with comedy as well as first-hand insight. Midway through the drama that saw Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft banned, an International Cricket Council official called the third umpire’s room to say he had spotted a separate offence. Bear in mind, the on-field officials had already challenged Bancroft and the mood was suffocatingly tense.

In his new autobiography, Gunner – My Life in Cricket, Gould, 62, recalls passing on the new information from the third umpire’s booth, saying: “Stay calm, and ask Nathan Lyon what colour socks he’s wearing.’”

The reply from the pitch: “Seriously? Go on, what’s the punchline?”

Gould again: “No punchline, seriously. They think that Nathan is wearing black socks. Ask him to show you his socks.”

“They want us to ask Nathan Lyon what colour socks he’s wearing, in the middle of this s--- storm?’”

Lyon’s response was expletive-filled, but he did run off and return with white socks on. Then the true scandal really broke, when more TV pictures showed Bancroft concealing sandpaper and shame descended not only on Australia’s cricket team but the nation.