Australia's greatest sporting scandals Essendon's drugs case is one of the greatest scandals in Australian sport. But will it make the top 10? It just isn't cricket when England employ short-pitched bowling at Australia's batsmen in the 1932-33 Ashes tour. The Poms hatch the plan to halt the peerless strokeplay of Don Bradman, but use it against other batsmen as well, causing an international incident. Australians are incensed at the Mother Country, who in turn are outraged at being labelled unsporting as relations sour in a controversy which forced a change to the rules of cricket. Kerry Packer, the Nine Network boss, precipitates a perfect storm in 1977. Angry at the rejection of his bid for Australian cricket's television rights, he audaciously signs the world's top players - who are similarly upset at being paid a pittance. The revolution comes with coloured clothing, night matches and razzle-dazzle, and lasts two seasons before peace is brokered with the establishment and Packer wins the television rights. The rugby league schism in the mid-1990s pits Packer in one corner against his media mogul rival Rupert Murdoch in the other, fighting over league's broadcast rights. Murdoch's News Corporation creates its own competition, Super League, which in 1997 runs against the traditional Australian Rugby League, backed by Packer. Super League lasts just one season before a compromise is reached and the National Rugby League is born. The biggest salary cap cheats in Australian sport are punished in 2010, when stripped of two NRL premierships, fined $500,000 and ordered to pay back $1.1 million in prize money. They're found guilty of long-term systematic rorting, being as much as $3.17 million over the salary cap in a five-year period. "The elaborate lengths that they went to hide the payments was quite extraordinary," the NRL's then-chief David Gallop says. The stink of Trevor Chappell's underarm remains. Trevor follows orders of his captain and big brother Greg and rolls an underarm delivery in a 1981 one-day final against New Zealand at the MCG. The Kiwis need six runs from the last ball to tie, with batting bunny Brian McKechnie on strike: he blocks the ball, then tosses his bat away in disgust. Captain Greg says it's a "cry for help" amid increasing demands on his team. But it's hard to argue with New Zealand's then-prime minister Robert Muldoon, who calls the incident "disgusting" and "an act of true cowardice." When paint drips from a horse running as Fine Cotton after it won a 1984 race at Eagle Farm in Brisbane, some punters yell: "Ring in." They're right. The horse is actually Bold Personality, who races as Fine Cotton in a scam perpetrated by some of the biggest names in Australian racing. Six people are banned from racing for life and two, organiser John Gillespie and trainer Hayden Haitana, are jailed. The champion swimmer gets an Olympic flag from Japan's Imperial Palace during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, but denies climbing the flagpole herself. Fraser says she and Australian hockey player Des Piper and the team's doctor, Howard Toyne, hoisted Piper on their shoulders to souvenir flags from outside the palace. We got two flags down and the next thing there were whistles blowing everywhere, the police had seen us, we'd been spotted, and they started to chase us. So we ran," Fraser says. She was found hiding in bushes, arrested but released without charge - and given the flag the next day. The Australian Swimming Union suspended her for 10 years but lifted the ban after four years. Australian cricket is exposed as staggering hypocrites by a journalist who uncovers the dirtiest laundry imaginable. Test stars Warne and Mark Waugh are fined by the Australian Cricket Board for giving information to a subcontinental bookmaker, known as `John', during a 1994 tour of Sri Lanka. They're fined in early 1995 but the penalty is kept secret until December 1998. Arguably the greatest ever AFL footballer makes arguably the greatest ever betrayal in 2002, when he's busted with Kelli Stevens - the wife of his best friend and teammate Anthony Stevens. Carey, who is also married, and Kelli are caught in a toilet at the home of another North Melbourne club-mate. Their affair forces Carey to quit the Kangaroos in disgrace. His former mate Anthony Stevens later says: "If you wanted (it) that bad you would go to a knock shop, wouldn't you? You wouldn't take your best mate's wife. A day before the 2003 World Cup starts in South Africa, Warne is sent home after failing a drugs test. He says his Mum gave him a diuretics pill so he could get rid of his double-chin. The pill contains hydrochlorothiazide and amiloride, normally used to aid temporary weight loss but substances which can also serve as masking agents for performance enhancing drugs. Warne had just completed a rapid recovery from shoulder surgery but says he took the pill solely for vanity. He's banned for a year. The West Coast hero admits he's a drug addict during his decorated AFL career but denies ever using drugs on game day. CANTERBURY-BANKSTOWN BULLDOGS: A woman alleges she's sexually assaulted by seven players from the rugby league club after a pre-season game at Coffs Harbour in 2004, but charges are eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence. ALEX WATSON: The modern pentathlete is the only Australian athlete to fail a drugs test at an Olympic Games, blaming his excessive caffeine levels at the 1988 Seoul Games on too much coffee. The Australian Olympic Committee agrees, overturning his life ban in 1989. JOHN HOPOATE: Rugby league's bad boy is sacked by Wests Tigers in 2001 after being suspended by the NRL for 12 weeks for putting a finger into the anuses of three North Queensland Cowboys players. MUTTIAH MURALITHARAN: The Sri Lankan is called for throwing in 1995 by Australian umpire Darrell Hair on world cricket's biggest stage, the MCG on Boxing Day. CANTERBURY-BANKSTOWN BULLDOGS: Docked premiership points by the NRL for salary cap breaches in 2002, the Bulldogs are also fined a then-record $500,000. CARLTON: In 2002, the AFL heavyweights are fined a competition record $987,500 and have draft picks taken from them after being found guilty of systematic salary cap breaches totalling $1.37 million. 1909 RUGBY LEAGUE GRAND FINAL: South Sydney and Balmain unofficially agree to boycott the grand final in protest at New South Wales Rugby League plans for a match between the Australian rugby union and rugby league teams that will upstage the final. But unknown to Balmain, South Sydney turn up ready to play and are given the title as Balmain are deemed to have forfeited. STUART O'GRADY: The Olympic gold medallist and Tour de France stage winner's frequent criticism of drugs in cycling rings hollow after confessing he used performance-enhancing drugs in 1998 - an admission made only after he's named in a French senate inquiry into doping.