Watch: Ravindra Jadeja accused of ball tampering after he applies ointment for his sore fingers
Ravindra Jadeja announced himself on the Test stage with a memorable comeback in the white flannels as he picked up 5-47 in his 22-over spell in the first Test against Australia. He reduced Australia to 177 in the first innings, and in India’s batting innings, he scored a timely fifty to vault India into a position of strength. He scored an unbeaten 66 off 170 balls with nine fours at the end of Day 2.
Meanwhile, a controversial incident involving Jadeja took place on Day 1 of the Nagpur Test at the Jamtha Stadium. A video of Mohammed Siraj rubbing something on Jadeja’s palm went viral at end of Day 1 and he could be seen applying the same to his index finger. It happened when Australia were 120-5 and had lost Marnus Labuschagne, Matt Renshaw and Steve Smith very quickly.
When this incident happened, social media went into a frenzy as there were a lot of reactions from the cricketing fraternity. Former Australian captain Tim Paine labelled the incident as “interesting”, and former Australian batter Michael Clarke felt that Jadeja should have given the ball to the umpire and then done whatever he wanted.
Here is Ravindra Jadeja’s video
Australia accusing Team India of cheating while there has not been any sandpaper visible on the screen. #INDvsAUS #BGT2023 #CricketTwitter pic.twitter.com/xJsGQbN7sS
— Himanshu Pareek (@Sports_Himanshu) February 9, 2023
The Match referee, Andy Pycroft, brought the attention of the issue to captain Rohit Sharma and showed them the video. Rohit was quick to explain that Jadeja was applying pain relief ointment to his fingers. It should be known that Jadeja practised bowling long spells of 12-13 overs, and is coming back after a long injury layoff and his fingers would have become sore after bowling a long spell.
In what was a stunning backing former Australian wrist-spinner, Brad Hogg came to the defence of Ravindra Jadeja and wrote on Twitter, “If you look closely, there is a cream on Siraj’s hand which stood out clear as day on the TV. Jadeja applied it to his finger, at no stage did he put it on the ball. No need for further discussion.
