England suspected ball-tampering during Ashes: Dawid Malan

The ball tampering incident during the third test between South Africa and Australia has shocked the cricketing world. Fans and experts have called for strict punishments for the accused so that such incidents do not occur again. It is disheartening for a cricket fan to see that Steve Smith and David Warner, two of the widely respected and best cricketers in the world would be involved in such a mess.

The sandpaper gate incident has prompted the authorities to investigate the previous test matches where the Aussies extracted good reverse swing. Australia beat England quite handsomely in the Ashes series. Dawid Malan, one of the finds of the summer for England, has revealed England had suspicions Australia were ball-tampering during the Ashes series.

Anderson and Broad did not extract as much reverse-swing as the Aussies

Though Malan did not accuse any particular player in the Australian setup, he and his teammates were surprised to see the Aussie bowling lineup extract prodigious reverse swing when James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who have 928 Test wickets between them, were unable to do.

“I think every time the ball starts reversing quickly, no matter which team you’re playing against, you always ask the question. Sometimes you get the ball reversing quicker than other times — and if we don’t get it reversing, we always just look at each other and go, ‘Oh well, they must be doing something to it’. That’s just natural.” Malan was quoted as saying by standard.co.uk.

Dawid Malan also added that he was disappointed with the recent ball-tampering scandal. “They’ve said their leadership group [only knew]. If that’s the way they did it, that’s the way they did it.” He added.

England is set to face New Zealand in the second test on Friday and is set to drop Moeen Ali and Craig Overton for the game while New Zealand will miss the services of Todd Astle who has been sidelined due to a side strain.

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