"The Australian camp has been lecturing people lately on how the game should be played, and a line that shouldn't be crossed. Well, it looks like they're on the wrong side of the line here"
Monday 2 April 2018 12:41, UK
Nasser Hussain has criticised Australia for a "blatant attempt to ball tamper" on day three of the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town.
Cameron Bancroft has been charged with ball tampering following the close of play, after television footage just before the tea interval appeared to show him using a foreign object on the ball, trying to rough up one side of the ball with a small piece of yellow material taken from his right hip pocket. Captain Steve Smith has also since come out and said that the "leadership group knew about it".
Bancroft was also seen putting the small object into his underwear in an apparent attempt to hide it after seemingly receiving instructions from head coach Darren Lehmann via 12th man Peter Hanscomb.
"It does not look good for the image of the game," said Hussain. "It looks terrible, a premeditated move to get reverse swing and a blatant attempt to ball tamper.
"It doesn't look like it was just a brain fade. This looks more premeditated.
"I take you back to Michael Atherton, all those years ago, with dirt in his pocket. He had a brain fade, deciding to suddenly sprinkle a bit of dirt on the ball and gets done for it.
"But you don't just happen to have a bit of sandpaper, or whatever that yellow object was, in your pocket.
"Then, when Bancroft is caught, he seemingly gets the message sent down to hide it down his pants. And he shows the umpires his sunglasses case."
English umpires Richard Illingworth and Nigel Llong walked over to talk to Bancroft at the time, but allowed play to continue at the time with no change to the ball.
Bancroft has since been charged and, by the laws of the game, changing the condition of the ball is a Level 2 offence, with the imposition of a fine of between 50-100% of the applicable match fee and/or up to two suspension points.
It is another flashpoint in a contentious series, which has also seen David Warner and Quinton de Kock charged for an altercation in the first Test and Kagiso Rabada briefly suspended for a 'shoulder barge' on Smith in the second Test before that was overturned on appeal.
"The Australian camp has been lecturing people over the last few months on how the game should be played, and a line that shouldn't be crossed. Well, it looks like that Australian hierarchy are on the wrong side of the line here," added Hussain.
"It has gone too far. Some of the stuff that has come out of the Australian camp, especially, has been laughable.
"Warner has gone round the world sledging people. He then gets it back from De Kock, and he and the Australian camp suddenly decide that a line has been crossed. I don't know who the Australians are to tell you what that line is and who has crossed that line.
"It has bubbled up again in the last couple of days, because Warner got it badly, terribly from the South African crowd - I don't agree with any of this - and again Lehmann thinks another line has been crossed.
"You can't do that. Here is a coach that, in 2013, stated that every Australian fan should send Stuart Broad home crying and should sledge him. Now he is saying crowds shouldn't sledge. There seem to be double standards.
"It's not needed. Just macho rubbish and it makes me cross. Just play your cricket and let bat or ball do the talking."
