Two England players were seen stepping on the ball with their spikes in the second session of day four during the second Test between England and India at Lord’s. There is yet to be any official comment from either side on the controversy, and it is unclear whether it was deliberate or not.
Wood stepped on the ball with his left foot before passing the ball onto the second player with his right. Burns stopped the ball with his left foot by stepping on to it. The incident took place in the 32nd over of the day and India’s second innings.
Stuart Broad, who has been ruled out of the rest of the Test series due to a calf injury, got agitated with allegations. He started replying to a few Twitter users who were accusing England of tampering the ball.
“My comments are – Woody tried to nutmeg Burnsy by tapping the ball through his legs (a very common occurrence) & he missed and kicked the ball there by accident. Instead of screenshotting the pic, watch the video – quite plain & easy to see,”
Broad replied to one of the Twitter users.
“As I’m sure you’re aware form watching the full footage- it wasn’t deliberate was it. End of Story,” the veteran fast bowler replied to another tweet.
Former India cricketers Aakash Chopra and Virender Sehwag also questioned the incident.