World Cup 2019: Kevin Pietersen comes to rescue of Adam Zampa on ball tampering claims against India

Indian team handed Australia a big defeat in a much-awaited encounter of the World Cup 2019 played Sunday at the Oval in London. Australia was coming off two wins in their last two matches and India had defeated South Africa in their first match of the tournament. India beat the Men in Yellow by 36 runs in a dominant performance.

India can really thank Shikhar Dhawan’s 117 and half-centuries from Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for setting the team a good platform from which Hardik Pandya and MS Dhoni launched the score to over 350 runs batting first. The Australian bowlers seemed ineffective against the Indian batting lineup as the likes of Cummins, Starc, Coulter-Nile, and Zampa all went for over 50 runs in their 10 overs quota.

Zampa was in news for something that was noticed by fans on camera, as he was seen putting something on the ball and then back in his pockets, leading to the fans to speculate on sandpaper gate chapter 2.

Kevin Pietersen comes to the rescue of Zampa

Zampa was caught on the cameras as he was seen putting his hands inside his pocket and then rubbing the ball. The images and video of Zampa doing so went viral big time. However, skipper Aaron Finch explained what Zampa was doing at the post-match presentation conference.

“I haven’t seen the photos, but I know that he has hand warmers in his pocket. He has them every single game he plays. I honestly haven’t seen them, so I can’t comment too much on it. But I know for a fact that he has hand warmers every game,” Finch was quoted as saying by India Today.

Now Zampa has got support from rivals as well, as former England captain Kevin Pietersen came forward to show support for the leg-spinner. Pietersen tweeted, “Almost EVERYBODY uses hand warmers when it’s cold here in England when fielding. Hands in pockets the WHOLE time! Zamps was just being dozy! NOTHING IN IT!”

Meanwhile, the Australian batting in the chase of 352 looked shaky right from the start, despite Warner and Finch added over 60 runs for the first wicket. Warner made 56, Alex Carey slammed 55* in 35 balls and Steve Smith made 69 runs, but Indian bowlers kept picking wickets at regular intervals with Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar returning hauls of three wickets each.