Matt Prior has rubbished the idea that Australia’s bowlers had no knowledge of the team’s ball tampering ploys in the lead-up to Sandpapergate, using his own experience of international dressing rooms.

Prior, a member of England’s celebrated 2010-11 team that retained the Ashes on Australian soil, says he finds it impossible to comprehend how so few of the Australian travelling party in South Africa eight years ago knew of what was happening to the match ball in Cape Town.

It is consistent with his reaction back then, tweeting: ‘In EVERY team I played in good luck doing anything to the ball without consulting the bowlers first! Be taking your life in your own hands!’ And: ‘I can’t believe for one minute that only three players knew what was going on...bowlers, coach and bowling coach weren’t involved in discussions of how to get the ball moving...whether it be by cheating or not!’

Responding to Usman Khawaja’s incendiary account of the Australians doctoring the ball from early in the 2017-18 Ashes up to the point where Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera at Newlands concealing sandpaper in his trousers while fielding, he said: ‘I never played in a dressing room that used sandpaper on a cricket ball. Or a bottle top, or anything else, externally.

‘Now, what I will say, because we can't all suddenly come across holier than thou, is that in international cricket, you have to find a way to get the ball going sideways.

‘In Test cricket, if the ball is not going off the straight - whether that be spin, orthodox swing, or reverse - you will be standing in the field for two days, because the batsmen are that good.

‘So, as a team, you make decisions: you evaluate the wicket, you evaluate the conditions, and you're saying, "right, what are we doing here?" Okay, it's April in England. We're going to keep the ball as shiny as possible, and it's going to swing all day. Great. Not a lot to do. If it's the fifth day in Mumbai, it’s going be ragging square, not a great deal you have to do either.

‘But you have situations on certain surfaces where the ball is doing nothing, and you have to get it moving sideways, and therefore, reverse swing is the option, and there are a number of ways you can do that.

‘I can’t comment on what goes on in other dressing rooms, I can only talk about my experience within the dressing rooms that I played in, and one of the things I do know is that the ball is the bowler's armoury.

‘If a bowler went up to a batsman's bat, for instance, and started sanding it, or changing a grip, or taking tape off it, or anything else …. if you went anywhere near Jonathan Trott's bat, he would have gone absolutely ballistic.

‘So, you can imagine what it's like for a bowler. You've got one ball, and then you get three batters suddenly tearing into it without your knowledge? They would be going absolutely mental.’

Prior, who is part of TNT Sports’ commentary team for England’s white-ball series in Australia starting on Friday, continued: ‘There is just no way in any of the dressing rooms I played in that a conversation would have been had where the bowlers are not aware of what the plan is with the ball, and what you're all trying to do with it. Once that decision is made, it has to be a collective effort. A team effort.

‘So, going back to reverse swing, and I'm not talking about ball tampering with sandpaper or anything like that, just the art of getting the ball to reverse swing - the ball has to remain very, very dry.

‘Throwing the ball into the ground, dusting it up, everyone knows that's a tactic that teams use, and it scuffs up the ball, but the crucial thing is keeping it dry.

‘If one teammate has got sun cream on, and they have some on their palm, and they touch the dry side with a sweaty palm, the reverse swing is gone. It's done. Ruined for the whole team.

‘So, the attention to detail around the ball is massive. In the dressing rooms I was in, the bowling group, which usually included the captain, the coach and usually the wicketkeeper, would make a decision on what we were trying to do, and then that would be told to the rest of the group. “This is the plan for this session or for the rest of the day.”

‘And that's how it would go. I never played in a team where three players would randomly make a decision around the ball without anyone knowing about it.’

Australian cricket is reeling from Khawaja’s claims in Sabr, with the reputations of current captain Pat Cummins, fellow veteran seamers Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc and then coach Darren Lehmann back under the microscope. So far, Lehmann has distanced himself from Khawaja’s comments while Starc, the only bowler to respond so far, says he is sticking by the bowling group’s 2021 statement regarding their ignorance at Newlands.

But Prior, who knows what it is like to be falsely accused, having worn the blame initially in Nottingham’s ‘jellybeangate’ Test against India in 2007 before Ian Bell was identified as the perpetrator, says he has the utmost sympathy for Bancroft.

‘Because Steve Smith had his opportunities to come back, he’s a lord of the game, a legend, one of the best that's ever played, right? David Warner is David Warner. A phenomenal career, he's now retired and he's got his commentary gig,’ Prior reflected.

‘Cameron Bancroft has gone through the same level of scrutiny and been absolutely hammered. Make no mistake, it won't just be the articles in the press, it will be every single day on social media. It will be every single time he walks out, goes for a meal. There'll be someone saying something to him, abusing him, calling him a cheat.

‘Cameron Bancroft at that point was a very junior player, and he would have been told, "this is what we're doing", by someone. And he would have fallen in line, as a junior player, done what he was told.

‘And then, when it's all come out, he's been massively thrown under the bus to cop it all, along with Steve Smith and David Warner, but no one else.’

Every match of England’s white-ball tour of Australia, starting this Friday in Perth, will be broadcast live and exclusively on TNT Sports and HBO Max