England fast bowler Stuart Broad calls Australia ball tampering "a shame"

Broad also called Darren Lehmann's criticism of SA crowd behavior hypocrisy.

                        Stuart Broad

The Australia ball tampering scandal has taken the cricket world by storm as everyone is giving their reactions on Cameron Bancroft’s actions and Steve Smith’s admission of tampering with the ball.

England fast bowler Stuart Broad wondered why the Australian team changed their tactics which helped them win the Ashes. “I saw Steve Smith in his press conference said it was the first time they've tried it, which to me, seems really surprising, why they'd change a method that's been working," said Broad.

He continued, "Look at the Ashes series that we've just played. You look through virtually all of those test matches and they reverse swung the ball, in, sometimes, conditions that you wouldn't expect the ball to reverse, so I don't understand why they've changed their method for this one game."

Broad said he had to take Smith's word for it, and that he hadn't noticed anything unusual earlier in the summer. "I don't know. Steve said it's the first time they've tried it, so he's saying they have [changed their method]. There's no evidence that they were doing this in the Ashes series, from what I've seen," Broad explained.

Broad also suggested hypocrisy in words of Australian coach Darren Lehmann, as Lehmann criticized crowd behavior after a fan heckled David Warner.

Darren Lehmann

Broad said to a journalist, "That's your word, not mine, but I'd agree with you", when it was suggested to Broad that there was an element of hypocrisy in Lehmann’s words.

Broad continued, "You look at the quotes from that 2013 interview, where he basically asked the country to send an opposition player home crying. We lost the series, but it didn't make me cry, I quite enjoyed the series, and the banter, and all that sort of stuff. I then can't understand why you'd come out and moan about a different country, and what they're saying to [Australia's] players.

"I've always been a bit of a believer, in sport, if someone looks you in the eye, you look them back in the eye. If someone wants to take you on verbally, and they've started that fight, then you're allowed to say something back. Just from the outside, it looks like Australia have started a lot of fights, and are moaning when someone comes back," Broad said.

"Any England player, or probably media, that have toured Australia can laugh at those comments really, because some of the comments we hear on the pitch by Australian supporters, known as banter, having toured South Africa, I know it's worse than South Africa," Broad said while terming Lehmann’s statement laughable.

 
 

By Jatin Sharma - 25 Mar, 2018

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