But those requests ran up against the fierce objections of the Australian team itself. As former captain Ricky Ponting put it when speaking at the Chappell Foundation dinner in Sydney in early 2020:

“I was very guarded as the Australian captain because I didn’t particularly want – and this will probably come across in the wrong way – the public to know about our team. There was a lot of mystique about what happened in the changerooms of the Australian cricket team and I found myself a guardian of our players, almost like a father figure to the players where I wasn’t going to let anybody know anything they didn’t need to know.”

So in the mess of emotions and concerns that followed the 2018 Newlands scandal, desires from CA for the team to open up more, and then new coach Justin Langer to balance these hopes with the traditions held dear by Ponting, the footage deletion agreement was reached.

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In 2019, a reminder arrived of why that arrangement made sense to the concerned parties. The emergence of expletive-laden coaches box audio from former Bulldogs mentor Rodney Eade, sounding angry at his runner and the ruckman Will Minson in turn, raised plenty of eyebrows for coaches and documentarians alike.

Five years later, in the aftermath of season two of the Amazon series, the agreement to delete footage has left a range of views in the air. Some players wish they could look back on the cuts, if only to be reminded of how much the team has evolved.

Others, as documentary junkies themselves, like the idea of a fresh story being put together from all this footage in years down the track, as happened when Peter Jackson stitched together the unused film from the Beatles Let It Be project in 1969.

Discussions also relate to a question left tantalisingly in the air at the end of season two, which leaves the Australian team about to embark upon tours of India and England this year that will largely define the legacy of Pat Cummins and company.

If there is to be a third season taking in these epochal encounters, a lot is going to have to happen very quickly. The job is hugely demanding for Mauger in particular, encompassing long days and longer tours.

Filmmakers were able to film in India during season one, for a brief Australian white ball tour ahead of the 2019 World Cup, but visa and travel arrangements would still need to be finalised.

And all involved in the project are, for the time being, taking a deep breath while unsure whether they will get the call to go again in 2023.

Either way, the Amazon documentaries are largely a case of offering a valuable but contemporaneous and somewhat careful window into the Australian team, as opposed to vaulting up footage for history.

Michael Jordan, it should not be forgotten, held out nearly 20 years to give his approval for the Chicago Bulls’ 1997-98 footage to be used. In the case of the Australian team, the trade-off has been to ward off future leaks in return for something substantial in the here and now.

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