Counter claims as key Steve Smith declaration challenged by South Africa

South African Test great Fanie de Villiers has challenged Steve Smith's claim that his team only once tried to tamper with the ball during its tour of South Africa.

Smith insisted during his extraordinary press conference after play on day three of the Third Test in Cape Town that Cameron Bancroft is the only member of the Australian Test team to have attempted to rough up the Kookaburra ball with a foreign strip of poorly concealed tape.

However, de Villiers on Monday said the evidence of Australia's ball management during the series in South Africa suggests the tourists have been "doing something different" since their victory in the First Test in Durban.

It comes as a counter-claim report from within the Australian team declared a member of the visiting team had earlier approached the umpires to ask about South Africa's ability to whip the ball into a reverse-swinging nightmare throughout the test series.

Related stories:

• World reacts to Steve Smith's decision to step down as captain in Cape Town
• A national day of shame': How Australia reacted to ball-tampering scandal
• Cricket ball-tampering: How it works, why players do it and what are the punishments?
• The Aussie cheating crisis
• 6 Questions from cricket's ugly ball tampering bombshell
• The steep descent of Australian captain Steve Smith bombshell
• This is worse than 'mintgate' says SA skipper
• Dylan Cleaver on cricket's ball-tampering scandal: Having the (tampered) balls to take on Australia
• The hits keep coming for Steve Smith and co
• Former Black Caps opener Mark Richardson admits to ball tampering during cricket career
• Ball-tampering scandal: Cricket's Cheats XI
• Cricket world mercilessly mocks the Australian team
• Young South Africa fan offers sandpaper to Australian player

De Villiers, however, claims Australia has also shown incredible skill in shining the ball into a reverse swinging rock early in almost every innings of their series so far.

"I said earlier on, that if they could get reverse swing in the 26th, 27th, 28th over then they're doing something different from what everyone else does,'' de Villiers told RSN Radio.

"We actually said to our cameramen... go out (and) have a look boys. They're using something. They searched for an hour and a half until they saw something and then they started following Bancroft and they actually caught him out at the end.

"It's impossible for the ball to get altered like that on cricket wickets where we knew there was grass on, not a Pakistani wicket where there's cracks every centimetre.

"We're talking about grass covered wicket where you have to do something else to alter the shape, the roughness of the ball on the one side. You have to get the one side wetter, heavier than the other side.'

It comes after reports that South Africa asked umpires to look into tape on David Warner's hands during the Second Test in Port Elizabeth.

The Daily Telegraph on Monday reported one Australian player made a similar approach to the umpires before play on day two of the First Test.

"How the f*** could they get the ball to reverse swing after 18 overs yesterday," the player reportedly asked officials Kumar Dharmasena and Sundaram Ravi.

The report indicates South Africa's early conjuring of reverse swing was partly responsible for Smith's desperate attempt to do the same.

Former captain Michael Clarke on Monday urged Australia's furious sporting public to forgive under-siege skipper Smith over the cheating scandal.

He said Australia needed to move on from the anger over Smith's ball-tampering plot in the third Test against South Africa and work on restoring the sport's battered reputation.

"I do feel for Steve Smith," Clarke told Channel 7.

"100 per cent he has made a major mistake and he and a lot of other people I think are going to have to suffer the consequences.

"That's fair enough. But I think it's important that we do over time forgive as well."

To get the day's top sports stories in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter here