England suspected ball-tampering during Ashes
England had concerns about Australian ball-tampering during the Ashes but there was never any solid evidence to take to the authorities.
England were suspicious of how Australia at times managed to achieve reverse swing despite the lush outfields and lack of lateral movement during the series in general. Concerns centred on David Warner polishing the ball at mid-off. It was thought that Warner might use the rings on his fingers to rough up its surface. However, the only time anything remotely suspicious was picked up on camera involved Cameron Bancroft in the fifth Test in Sydney.
He was seen spooning sugar into his hand and then putting it in his pocket before going on the pitch. Sugar granules could be used as an abrasive to help scuff up the ball, but the matter was explained away at the time as an innocent way of a player taking an energy boost on the field in hot, strength-sapping conditions.
After Bancroft’s involvement in the ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town, footage of what he did in Sydney was doing the rounds on social media yesterday.
Stuart Broad, speaking after the third day’s play in the Test in New Zealand, hinted at England’s reservations over Australia’s methods in gaining consistent reverse swing.
“I saw Steve Smith in his press conference said it was the first time they’ve tried it, which to me, seems really surprising why they’d change a method that’s been working,” he said. “Look at the Ashes series that we’ve just played. You look through virtually all of those Tests and they reverse swung the ball in conditions that you wouldn’t expect the ball to reverse, so I don’t understand why they’ve changed their method for this one game. There was no evidence that they were doing this in the Ashes series, from what I’ve seen.”
England were at the centre of the only real ball-tampering controversy in Australia when TV footage showed James Anderson looking as if he was picking at the seam of the ball during the fourth Test. He was cleared by the match referee and England coach Trevor Bayliss hit out at “Pommie bashing” by the Australian media.
Broad also accused Australia of double standards for complaining about crowd abuse in South Africa when Darren Lehmann, the coach, in 2013 called for fans to send the England bowler home crying. “I don’t understand Lehmann saying the South African crowd have been out of order. Any England player that has toured Australia can laugh, because some of the things we hear from Australian supporters – known as ‘banter’ – are worse.”