CLAYDON HIT BY BAN FOR TAMPERING

SUSSEX face being docked Championship points after the ECB threw the book yesterday at bowler Mitch Claydon for ball-tampering. The Australian-born Claydon was banned for a staggering nine matches for putting hand sanitiser on the ball during the Bob Willis Trophy defeat by Middlesex at Radlett in August. And the ECB have now charged Sussex with breaching their directives, leaving them to face a disciplinary hearing at which they could be penalised 12 points, carried forward to next season. Claydon, 37, was last night said to be stunned by the most severe punishment for ball-tampering in domestic cricket history, even though he admitted the charge to a panel chaired by Mark Milliken-Smith QC. The former Durham and Kent medium-pacer told the panel he put the sanitiser on one hand during a cleansing break, but then did not rub his hands together. That meant he still had the substance on his left hand when he resumed bowling. Claydon’s defence included an insistence that the ball did not swing after the incident and that he only took three wickets in the match. The ECB responded that tampering was one of the most serious offences in cricket. Despite Claydon’s claim that he did not attempt to alter the condition of the ball, Sussex banned him for six matches and the ECB added a further three, starting with yesterday’s Twenty20 Blast quarter-final defeat by Lancashire at Hove. The veteran bowler will serve the final two matches of his suspension at the start of next season.