Here are some of the cheekiest tactics attempted in sport

Some athletes have gone to extreme measures to try and get an edge

Australian cricketers Cameron Bancroft and Steve Smith have been making headlines this week after they admitted to tampering with a match ball during their game against South Africa.

Slow-mo footage showed that Aussie batsman Bancroft used some yellow tape when trying to alter the texture and shape of the cricket ball.

"I saw an opportunity to potentially use some tape and get some granules from the rough patches on the wicket and try to change the ball condition,” Bancroft confessed in a post-game press conference.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull even had his say on the ball-rubbing antics from the country’s national team, saying, “It seemed completely beyond belief.”

So the moral of the story is, don’t cheat, but if you think that’s stopped athletes from trying then think again.

Here are a few cheeky tactics that have failed to go under the radar.

Have you ever put an item somewhere, only to find that it’s miraculously moved by itself when you go to find it?

That’s how referee Stefan Johansson must have felt when the goalposts changed positions during a game in the Swedish first division in 2009.

IFK Gothenburg goalkeeper Kim Christensen was the culprit in this bizarre scenario, in which the ref stepped in to make sure the goal was regulation size during for Gothenburg's game against Orebro. 

"I got the tip from a goalkeeping friend a few years ago, and since then I have done it from time to time," Christensen told a Swedish newspaper, external.

American football's ball-rules are complex, to say the least, external. In the NFL, each team provides a dozen balls to the referee for testing two hours before kickoff. However, during a 2015 play-offs match between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, a Colts linebacker noticed something was awry. 

It was eventually alleged that 11 of 12 of the Patriots' match balls were under-inflated.

So what, you might ask? Due to wet weather conditions on the day of their 45-7 win over the Colts, a deflated ball would've meant that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady could grip and throw the ball better than a fully inflated ball.

The NFL banned Brady for four games, claiming he was involved in deflating the balls, but the decision was later overturned due to “legal deficiencies” by a US judge.

"It is more probable than not that New England Patriots personnel participated in violations of the playing rules,” a 243-page report by an NFL executive and attorney read.

Neither Brady nor the Patriots confirmed that they were ever involved in the scandal, however the term ‘deflategate’ was etched into the sport’s history from that day on.

Chile’s national team were 1-0 down to Brazil in a qualifier for the 1990 World Cup, and with just 20 minutes left on the clock to score and avoid elimination, Chile's goalkeeper had an idea.

Roberto Rojas fell to the ground holding his forehead in a desperate plea to stop the game, claiming that a firework that landed on the pitch had hit him in the head.

To add to the theatrics, Rojas’ head began gushing with blood as he was carried off the pitch, with the rest of Chile’s players claiming that conditions were unsafe for the game to carry on.

The match was left unfinished, handing Chile a lifeline to make it to the World Cup. However, evidence later on showed that the blood on Rojas’ head wasn’t caused by the firework, but instead by a razor blade hidden in the goalkeeper’s gloves.

Fifa awarded Brazil a 2-0 win and Chile were banned from the 1994 World Cup, external, with Rojas receiving a ban for life which was revoked in 2001.

In an attempt to force a substitution during a 2009 European Rugby Champions Cup quarter final against Leinster, Harlequins wing Tom Williams came off the field with what appeared to be blood gushing from his mouth.

It later became apparent that the blood inside Williams’ mouth came from a fake blood capsule, but it allowed his team-mate and arguably the best kicker on the field, Nick Evans, to return to the game in his place.

To make matters worse, a doctor at the General Medical Council admitted to actually cutting Williams’ lip once he’d left the pitch in an attempt to prove there had been a genuine cut inside his mouth.

Dr Wendy Chapman, who used a stitch-cutter to make the incision in the Harlequins player’s mouth, external, was suspended from her post while Williams was given a 12-month ban that was later reduced.

College football in America is watched by millions in the US and broadcast on national television, so there are plenty of reasons for players to want to try and get the competitive edge.

Few people would have guessed, however, that the competitive edge would come in the form of a cooking spray can.

Players from Sacramento State Hornets were accused of greasing their shirts with the non-stick cooking spray, external during a league game against the Montana Grizzlies in 2002, in an attempt to make it harder for the opposition players to grip and tackle them down.

''It actually does work, to a certain extent,'' the league's commissioner, Doug Fullerton, said. ''That's why there are rules against it.''

Todd Goodrich, a photographer for the University of Montana said he spotted players spraying each other on the sidelines saying, "they were pretty blatant about it - right there on the sidelines."

It's surprising how athletes can sometimes forget that there are hundreds of cameras, giant LED screens and thousands of spectators analysing their every move on the field.

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