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If you asked a slightly bitter South African cricket fan to script the perfect 24 hours, it would look quite a lot like Saturday at 5PM through to Sunday at 5PM.

Hey, we watched the Ozzies pummel our boys for a solid 10 years from 1997 onwards, so I’m not ashamed to say that this has been sheer bliss.

As the footage of Cameron Bancroft shoving that yellow tape / sandpaper down his pants was shown on the big screen, the Newlands crowd began baying for blood.

Next thing we know Bancroft and Steve Smith are admitting guilt, Australia is plunged into turmoil and any semblance of moral high ground they’ve crowed from for the best part of the series is wiped away.

That’s just Saturday, because Sunday saw a batting implosion so spectacular that it was almost English in its lack of backbone.

Like I said, it was a glorious 24 hours.

Let’s start with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, waking up to the news that his boys are crooks:

That’s going to make it tougher for Cricket Australia to try and protect two of their prized assets, Smith and Warner.

Told you Warner is a prick.

If you somehow still haven’t seen the footage of how this one transpired, and I find that pretty hard to believe, let’s review it one more time:

In case you missed it, this #SandpaperGate #BallTampering is utterly outrageous. It’s just not cricket. #BanBancroft pic.twitter.com/Z3zpIA32Jr

— Emma Sadleir (@EmmaSadleir) March 24, 2018

That’s what you call a coordinated effort, folks. They’ll try and play this one off as a Smith / Warner call, but the coach is radioing down to the 12th man, Peter Handscomb, and if you think we’re buying that the captain and vice-captain acted alone then you’re smoking the good stuff.

Let’s also remember this, before we go further. The Ozzies only came clean after knowing that they were being charged with the offence, and knowing that the whole world had seen the replays over and over.

This whole ‘they should be given credit for fronting up’ angle has a granule of truth to it, because the press conference can’t have been easy, but if Steve Smith wants us to think this is the first time they’ve played dirty then he has come to the wrong country.

In case you didn’t see that presser from Saturday night after the close of play, get a load of this:

The International Cricket Council have already handed down their punishment – Bancroft was fined 75% of his match fee and given three disciplinary points, whilst Smith was fined 100% of his match fee and handed a one-match suspension, which means he will miss the final test in Jozi starting on Friday.

It’s the actions of Cricket Australia that are now under the microscope, with this below from the Telegraph:

Cricket Australia’s head of integrity, Iain Roy, is due to arrive in South Africa on Monday, along with Pat Howard, the team’s performance manager, to begin the investigation into Saturday’s events.

He will start by interviewing Smith, Warner and Bancroft before speaking to other players and coaches to determine who knew what…

Under Cricket Australia’s code of conduct players can face the maximum of a life ban for cheating although that would only realistically be applied in cases of match fixing. Instead Smith and Warner, if found guilty as the orchestrators of the plot, will be banned for a potentially lengthy period of time. Australia are due in England this summer for five ODIs. It is hard to imagine Smith and Warner being part of the tour.

The Prime Minister is not alone in his outrage, with former fast bowler Jason ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie penning a stinging attack on the Guardian.

Some of that spicy attack below:

Steve Smith’s time as Australia’s captain is surely up. It is impossible to envisage a scenario where he stays in the job. This is a train wreck…

Take the image of Bancroft and Smith speaking to the umpires, with the former producing a cloth he uses for his sunglasses rather than the piece of sticky tape covered in grit. They were just standing in the middle of a cricket match blatantly lying to the officials. That is such a bad look and hugely disappointing…

Australian cricket will survive this and provided there is some honesty with the camp, it will hopefully emerge in better shape. New leaders will rise up and take the side forward. But it will not be Smith and it will not be Warner.

Fair dinkum, mate.

We’ll get something up later with all the best banners, memes and chirps from the cricket, but for now just enjoy the view from the moral high ground.

Someone might try and tell you that Faf and Vern have been done for ball-tampering in recent memory, and they have, but their ‘bending’ of the rules doesn’t come close to what Australia tried to pull off on Saturday.

Not even close.