Friday morning began as the defining day of Pat Cummins' Test captaincy, before he delivered one of Australian sport's most extraordinary press conferences.
In denying Usman Khawaja's bombshell sandpaper claims, Cummins said more about ball tampering than potentially any active player in history.
Cummins made it clear from the opening that nothing was off limits, with nearly 50 reporters and camera operators in attendance.
He wanted to open up on the world of reverse swing, cricket change rooms and anything in between, in the hope it would provide context around March 24, 2018.
All on one proviso: that this would be the last time Cummins wanted to discuss what happened in Cape Town on Australian cricket's darkest day.
By the hour mark, a Cricket Australia staffer attempted to wrap up the press conference at first drinks.
Cummins responded by asking for the questions to keep coming.
"I'll answer every question, because this will just keep popping up if not," Cummins said.
"So, please, any nuanced question about cricket, change rooms, ball maintenance, sandpaper, whatever, I'm here to answer it today. Then I'm done."
In a 70-minute press conference that felt more like a university tutorial, Cummins ticked off every subject.
He labelled Khawaja's claims that everyone knew of the sandpaper plot "complete and utter nonsense", and criticised his ex-teammate's flippant nature.
There were admissions of the team's culture being ugly before 2018, and Cummins' hopes that he had helped institute change in the time since.
The Test captain denied rumours of a split between batters and bowlers, and admitted he could have better spoken about Steve Smith's neck injury last month.
He also pointed to the nature of international change rooms, that they are bigger than suburban ones and it was possible for not all conversations to be heard.
But the most fascinating topic was Cummins' admission that perhaps the Australian team should better educate the public about ball management.
And of course, the dark art of making the ball reverse swing.
While Cummins pointed to abrasive surfaces and Mitchell Starc being a master of cross-seam bowling to legally scuff up one side of a ball, there are also grey areas.
"You're allowed to shine a ball. You were allowed to apply saliva. But you can't apply too much. You can't load it up," Cummins said.
"You're allowed to rough the ball. You're allowed to throw it into the ground, but you're not allowed to let it bounce twice. You're not allowed to get it too wrecked."
And as for when those boundaries have been pushed?
"Let's get into it," Cummins said.
He pointed to superglue being used on clothes and gloves, rubbing the ball on zippers, layers of nail polish to scratch the ball, mints, bottle tops and sandpaper.
"You take each extreme of 'I'll shine it with saliva', and maybe I've got a bit of sugar in my mouth (from a mint)," Cummins said.
"You can see how boundaries get pushed."
Cummins said that in training Australia had used sandpaper, knives and concrete to scuff up the ball to give batters practice against reverse swing.
But he insisted he had only twice known or seen of illegal tampering in matches.
Once was in a Shield game for NSW when a senior player took a bottle top on to the field and scratched the ball.
"That was the one time I've seen it in the field," Cummins said.
"I was looking at it and going, wow, that's not OK. It was dealt with."
And of course in Cape Town in 2018, which he insisted he was only aware of when he saw Cameron Bancroft with sandpaper on the big screen.
"You can see how it's just the boundaries get pushed a little bit," Cummins said.
"But in saying that, when you see sandpaper on the screen, you go, that's definitely crossed the line."
For eight years, the prevailing question has centred around how Australia's bowlers did not recognise a ball that had been tampered with.
The answer has long been that the umpires also did not notice, with wet conditions in Cape Town on that day making Bancroft's work less effective.
But beyond that, Cummins also claimed another facet of the dark arts: that bowlers are rarely involved in ball management.
"Ninety-nine per cent of the time it's batters that are managing the ball. It's just what you do in cricket," he said.
"Reverse swing, for example. As soon as the ball gets wet, it won't reverse. So all us bowlers are bowling, running around. You get sweaty. You don't touch the ball.
"You actually see the keeper throws it to first slip, throws it all the way to mid-on.
"You're trying to get the least amount of hands, particularly sweaty hands, on (it), so a lot of the time that falls on a batter.
"I can see why people obviously think, oh, the bowlers bowl with it, they must manage the ball. But it's just not the case."
