Ball-tampering claims ridiculous, says Anderson

SYDNEY: England pace bowler James Anderson has described as “ridiculous” accusations that he was involved in tampering with the ball during the drawn fourth Ashes Test against Australia in Melbourne last week.

The 35-year-old was shown on television appearing to try to scuff up the ball with his thumbnail on the fourth day on Friday and local commentators seized on the footage as the match meandered to a draw.

England coach Trevor Bayliss, however, labelled the accusations as ‘Pommie bashing’ while Anderson scoffed at the suggestions.

“It escalated quite quickly, didn’t it?” Anderson said in comments published by Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper.

“Ridiculous, but what we’ve come to expect.

“(I was) getting dirt off the ball. They’d watered the square so the footholes on the old wickets had mud.

“We went to the umpires to make sure they were happy with it.”

Anderson’s comments echoed those of Bayliss, who said the umpires had told him on Saturday the accusations were a “beat-up”.

Both sides had been warned by the umpires during the match about deliberately throwing the new ball into the ground to scuff it up in a desperate attempt to exert some assistance from a drop-in pitch that offered both sides little help. ■ MOUNT MAUNGANUI (New Zealand): The second Twenty20 between New Zealand and the West Indies ended as a no-result washout at Mount Maunganui.

After a 20-minute rain delay at the start, only nine overs were possible before the rain returned and the umpires took the players from the field with New Zealand 102 for four.

Colin Munro blasted a whirlwind 66 off 23 deliveries after the West Indies won the toss and put New Zealand into bat yesterday.

Munro equalled his own New Zealand record when he reached his half-century off 18 deliveries.