David Warner had tampered with the ball during a first-class match, recalls Alastair Cook
What's the story?
Former English opening batsman, Alastair Cook has put light on the conversation he had with fellow Australian batsman, David Warner during the celebrations of Australia's 2017-18 Ashes win. Cook has mentioned in his autobiography that Warner disclosed some details of how he had once tampered the ball conditions during a first-class match to accelerate the deterioration of the ball.
The background
Alastair Cook had announced his retirement from cricket in September 2018 after the home series against India. He has now published his autobiography where the left-handed batsman has told some lesser-known stories.
He has talked about his 14 opening partners, how he felt before playing his final Test innings and his interactions with other players.
The heart of the matter
In an interview with The Guardian, Cook promoted his autobiography besides discussing the situation of England in the ongoing Ashes series. Referring to the 2017-18 Ashes in his book, the former English captain has stated that England's players had shared beers with the Aussies after Steve Smith's side won the series.
Cook recalled those celebrations, saying:
"David Warner, a couple of beers into his celebration, mentioned that he used substances attached to the strapping on his hand to accelerate the deterioration of the ball during a first-class match. I looked at Steve Smith who shot a glance that said: ‘Ooh, you shouldn’t have said that.”
And after that series, Cricket Australia had suspended the trio of Steve Smith, David Warner, and Cameron Bancroft for their alleged involvement in the infamous ball-tampering scandal against South Africa.
The English veteran was questioned whether the Australians had made use of sandpaper before the issue came to light in the South Africa series to which Cook replied:
“Stuart Broad sums it up pretty well and says they got the ball to reverse swing in that Ashes. Why change what you’ve been doing? Why suddenly use sandpaper? People know what was going on. But it’s been the best thing for Australian cricket because they realised it wasn’t acceptable. The win-at-all-costs culture they created isn’t what the Australian public needed or wanted. They’d gone too far.”
What's next?
Australia are currently leading the 5-match Ashes series 2-1 and the final Test match of Ashes 2019 will commence from 12th September in London. It will be interesting to see if there is any investigation laid down for ball-tampering post-Alastair Cook's interview.
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