The Infamous Sandpaper Gate: How Nathan Lyon Missed His Chance to Claim his 300th Test Wicket Ball

The Test was engulfed in a massive controversy due to allegations of ball tampering, resulting in Cricket Australia issuing bans to former captain Steve Smith, David Warner, and Cameron Bancroft.

During the Cape Town Test, Nathan Lyon took his 300th Test by having Kagiso Rabada stumped. It is imporant to mention that Rabada's dismissal was by the second new ball in the second innings while the ball tampering allegations had occurred in the 43rd over of Proteas' innings.

“(Kagiso) Rabada stumped was my 300th wicket. It was at the Cape Town Test. I haven’t seen that ball since, unfortunately. Yeah, I think with everything that happened that game, they took it to have a look at it all,” Lyon told The Daily Telegraph.

Due to the ball tampering scandal, the match officials including match referee Andy Pycroft had also taken the second new ball in their custody after the end of day's play.

As a result, Nathan Lyon was left waiting to see the ball, with which he took his 300th Test wicket. The spinner also contacted match referee David Boon to track the ball.

"It was actually David Boon. I bumped into him on the balcony of the team hotel in the Covid summer of 2020-21 and being an ICC match referee he reached out to them (the ICC) through his work and tried to find it, and apparently it’s gone missing. Don’t know where it is. There’s been no more correspondence. It is what it is," said Nathan Lyon.

Speaking of Nathan Lyon, he has 530 Test wickets to his name in 129 Tests. Stuart Broad was his 100th Test wicket, Dhananjaya de Silva his 200th, Dawid Malan his 400th and Faheen Ashraf his 500th Test wicket.

Lyon has all the other four balls at his home, however, the 300th-milestone ball is missing, as reported by Daily Telegraph.

“My wife has done an amazing piece of artwork where she’s put all the milestone balls or achievements on a wall at home which looked pretty special. To see the success I’ve been able to have and understand that all the hard work can pay off. I’ve collected from the start," said Nathan Lyon.

"It goes back a long way but it’s something I’m proud about and now my girls are starting to get old enough to ask questions about what’s this and what’s that. I am grateful for that but at the end of the day I guess I can just throw a ball in there and say it’s the 300th and no one will know, will they? (At the moment) it’s just a blank space,” he added.

Nathan Lyon is also the leading wicket-taker in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a total of 121 wickets in 27 matches. However, the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy will see Nathan Lyon facing India for the very first time in a five-match series.

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy is scheduled to begin on November 22 in Perth. The remaining four matches will be played in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.