Graph shows how Oz have got the ball to 'talk' in SA

Cape Town - Stats can be misleading, graphs too, but a look at the chart for the degree of swing Australia's bowling attack has achieved in recent Tests makes for fascinating, read incriminating, evidence.

READ: Open letter to Steve Smith from Australian cricket fan and father

Australian skipper Steve Smith and opener Cameron Bancroft came clean on Saturday after Day 3's play in the third Test against the Proteas at Newlands in Cape Town, after Bancroft was caught on camera rubbing the ball with a foreign object, which he then attempted to hide in his trousers.

Smith was subsequently banned for the fourth and final Test at the Wanderers and 100% of his Newlands match fee, while Bancroft copped a 75% deduction to his match fee, but was cleared for the Johannesburg showdown, pending a Cricket Australia investigation.

Many observers have suggested that despite Smith's claims that this was the first instance under his captaincy that cheating has taken place, this is certainly not the case.

READ: Was Steve Smith lying? Shocking new evidence suggest he was!

And a diagram put together by CricViz, leaders in in-depth cricket analysis and intelligence, suggests some form of ball "altering" has taken place throughout the three-Test series in South Africa.

READ: Fanie de Villiers tipped cameramen off to Australia's shenanigans

The degree of swing obtained by the Australian attack in overs 25-80 - when reverse swing is generally at its greatest after the shine has worn off and before the second new ball is taken - in the opening Test in Durban (a match Australia won by 118 runs) was 1.25 - which was significantly higher than their 15 prior Tests.

That figure then sky-rocketed to 1.64 in the Port Elizabeth Test, a match the Proteas won by six wickets.

The figure dropped to 1.08 in the recently concluded Newlands showdown (won by 322 runs by the Proteas), which perhaps explains why the plan was hatched by the "leadership group" at lunch on Day 3 to get the ball to "talk" more.

Meanwhile, a tweet (below) from former Australian cricketer and current SuperSport commentator, Mike Haysman, clearly showed the degrees of reverse swing both before and after the incident that has rocked the sport around the world.

Timeline of Day 3 showing degrees of reverse swing before & after ball tampering incident.
? No swing before lunch.
? Reverse swing after lunch chat.
? 2pm was the time it reversed a lot.
? 2:42pm was time incident was captured on camera.
• After that reverse swing stopped. pic.twitter.com/pxa65mgDT6

— Mike Haysman (@MikeHaysman) March 25, 2018