England players try to tamper the ball in 2nd Test

Picture Credit: Twitter

Ball tampering has been something which is very common in the field of cricket. The bowling team do try to tamper the condition of the ball in order to gain an advantage over the batting side. From Shahid Afridi chewing the ball to the Australian trio of David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft taking sandpaper to the field to make the condition of the ball poor, we have several examples of the misconduct. Despite strict actions being taken against the offenders, such incidents do happen at times. A similar shameful moment occurred on Day 4 of the England vs India second Test at Lord's as the home team attempted to tamper the ball by keeping it beneath their spikes, which has left cricket fanatics in disgust.

On Day 4, when the pitch seemed to be helping the fast bowlers in producing both out-swing and in-swing, two English players were caught in a prima facie ball-tampering attempt. Later, clip of the incident went viral on social media showing couple of England players, one which seems to be Olly Robinson, pressing the old ball against their shoe spikes. Out of the two players standing over the ball, the cameraman, fortunately for the Indian fans, focused upon the clear and evident visuals that detail upon how the home players tried affecting the state of the ball.

Here here are the videos:

The spoken about incident happened during the second session of play when Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara were batting at the crease. If cricketing fans were to be reminded, in 2010 January, England pacers Stuart Broad and James Anderson were accused of ball tampering in the third Test match against South Africa for stopping the ball with the spikes of their boot. To which the former bowler had responded by saying, it was a lazy day. Nevertheless, Nasser Hussain did accept that such behavior was not good and the players were wrong on their part. Yet there were no charges levelled against the duo.

Professional players, who are aware of each of the rule and regulation, are very well aware of their actions. Could this be treated as a possible breach of conduct? However as things stand, fans all over the social media have been asking questions to the International Cricket Council upon the legitimacy of the incident.