Watch: Full footage rubbishes ball-tampering allegations against England
Allegations of ball-tampering made on England fielders by some angered fans over Twitter on Sunday (August 15) turned out to be completely false after video footage emerged of the incident from Day 4 of the Lord’s Test against India.
Close-in fieldsman Rory Burns and fast bowler Mark Wood had accusations of an intentional attempt to touch their shoe’s spikes on the ball after some misinterpreted pictures did the rounds over social media.
The incident occurred in the 32nd over of the Indian second-innings. As Indian vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane defended the ball straight to Wood, the pacer tried to presumably have it rolled up into his hands with the shoe but only ended up nudging it away to Burns, who over ran slightly and accidentally stood up on it for half a second.
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England’s Rory Burns, Mark Wood had a ball-tampering accusation made on them by some Indian fans.
Did England attempt ball-tampering at Lord’s?
But even as Burns simply collected the ball and threw it back to Wood, those few seconds of shoeing had already gained controversial proportions over Twitter, with many Indian fans slamming the duo.
However, in another clip seen from a wider angle, it was evident that Burns and Wood were simply trying to grab hold of the ball and there was no obvious intent from them to tamper with it.
Ball tampering? Hell no! pic.twitter.com/xkO6kDcgdm
— Jabjabavas (@jabjabavas) August 16, 2021
It is something England fast bowler Stuart Broad tried to convince the Indian fans in his multiple discussions. Broad, who could not play the Lord’s Test due to injury, reasoned that Wood was only trying to nut meg the ball to his teammate and they both had their spikes touching the ball unintentionally.
My comments are- Woody tried to nut meg Burnsy by tapping the ball through his legs (a very common occurrence) & he missed and kicked the ball there by accident. Instead of screenshotting the pic, watch the video- quite plain & easy to see
— Stuart Broad (@StuartBroad8) August 15, 2021
When India’s batting coach Vikram Rathour was asked about the issue after the fourth day’s play by the media, he said the visitors did not read much into it, indicating that they did not find anything malicious about the two England cricketers’ actions.
“Not really, we were sitting outside so we hardly saw those replays. I saw it later, it does not look anything deliberate,” Rathour, the former India batsman, was quoted as saying by ANI. “I think it was accidental, we did not think anything about it actually.”