BBC Online :
Coach Trevor Bayliss dismissed suggestions that England tampered with the ball in the fourth Ashes Test against Australia in Melbourne.
Australian television broadcast footage which it claimed showed James Anderson digging his thumb nail into the ball during Australia’s second innings.
Former Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne said Anderson’s actions “might get people talking”.
“I went to the umpires and there was no problem from their point of view,” Bayliss told BBC Test Match Special.
Australia – 3-0 up in the five-Test series – reached 101-2, trailing England by 63 runs, before rain ended play early on day four.
On a placid MCG pitch offering the bowlers little assistance, England were looking to make the ball reverse swing.
That often involved fielders throwing it into the ground so one side became scuffed up.
Local television showed close-up pictures of Anderson, England’s leading wicket-taker of all time, working on the quarter-seam.
Footage was inconclusive, although Anderson was working on the shiny side – in theory, a side he did not want to alter when attempting to get the ball into a state to reverse – and could have been cleaning it, smoothing it or removing something that had come loose.
Coach Trevor Bayliss dismissed suggestions that England tampered with the ball in the fourth Ashes Test against Australia in Melbourne.
Australian television broadcast footage which it claimed showed James Anderson digging his thumb nail into the ball during Australia’s second innings.
Former Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne said Anderson’s actions “might get people talking”.
“I went to the umpires and there was no problem from their point of view,” Bayliss told BBC Test Match Special.
Australia – 3-0 up in the five-Test series – reached 101-2, trailing England by 63 runs, before rain ended play early on day four.
On a placid MCG pitch offering the bowlers little assistance, England were looking to make the ball reverse swing.
That often involved fielders throwing it into the ground so one side became scuffed up.
Local television showed close-up pictures of Anderson, England’s leading wicket-taker of all time, working on the quarter-seam.
Footage was inconclusive, although Anderson was working on the shiny side – in theory, a side he did not want to alter when attempting to get the ball into a state to reverse – and could have been cleaning it, smoothing it or removing something that had come loose.
