Du Plessis himself has been found guilty of trying to alter the condition of the ball twice in the past, in the United Arab Emirates in 2013 and in Australia in 2016.

Earlier this year, he was in the opposition camp as Cameron Bancroft was caught trying to hide a piece of sandpaper he had used on the ball during the Cape Town Test. That was in March, and even more recently, Dinesh Chandimal, the Sri Lanka captain, was caught using sweet-mixed saliva on the ball at a Test match in the West Indies.

“I have probably said it too much but there are too many grey areas when it comes to the ICC and the rules. One, you want clarity, and, two, you want consistency and that’s definitely something that’s not been part of that body of laws for a while now.

“There’s a lot of captains that have been speaking about it for a lot of years so, hopefully, when they do bring in all these new things there will be a lot of clarity and, most importantly, consistency for all teams.”

A change in the guidelines is in the offing, as a matter of fact. If reports are right, ball tampering will change from being a Level 2 offence to being a Level 3 offence. That will change the maximum penalty from a ban of one Test or two ODIs to a ban of four Tests or eight ODIs.