Australia were doctoring the ball against England in the 2017-18 Ashes, according to the latest revelations from Usman Khawaja’s whistle-blowing autobiography.
Within the chapter of the newly-released Sabr that covers the explosive claim that all of the Australian team were in on the sandpaper scandal in South Africa eight years ago, Khawaja goes on to reveal that ball tampering was embedded in the dressing room during the 4-0 series win over England that preceded it.
England’s players suspected that Australia had altered the condition of the ball in the third Test at Perth when despite heavy rain, the home attack managed to extract extravagant reverse swing to dismiss Joe Root’s side on the final day.
Reverse swing is most typically generated when the dry nature of the playing square scuffs up one side of the ball and the other is polished vigorously by the players on their trousers, using a combination of that friction and the application of sweat to create a smooth sheen.
However, Khawaja reveals that an attack featuring Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood plus off-spinner Nathan Lyon had found other ways to get the ball moving off the straight in Adelaide and Perth that winter.
‘On day five, Starcy bowled that unforgettable ball to James Vince off the crack,’ he wrote.
‘We were reverse swinging it late on day five. Actually, we were reverse swinging the ball the game before too – except it was much tougher, because it was the pink ball.
‘But we – and I say “we”, because we were a team, whether you did the deed or not – had worked out that, if we raised the flaps up on the quarter seam on that ball, it was almost like it had a rudder on it and it’d start reverse swinging.
‘And before you start going at me, calm down. The whole world was doing whatever little they could to try and reverse swing the ball.’
Despite Khawaja’s caveat that such practice was commonplace, under Law 41.3 of the Laws of Cricket, players are strictly prohibited from taking any deliberate action that artificially alters the physical condition of the match ball.
Either prising up, scratching or deteriorating the quarter seam – the secondary seam on the ball that runs at a right angle to the prominent stitched one, and there to secure the leather pieces together – with fingernails, thumbs or foreign objects is illegal and punishable by match officials.
If the quarter seam is raised, it can create a tiny flap of leather on the rough side of the ball, which disrupts the air flow on that side, and manufacturing reverse swing that would not occur naturally as a result.
Suspicion was raised in the away dressing room at the famous WACA ground when Australia overcame a three-hour rain delay on day five to pick off England’s remaining six wickets for an Ashes-sealing victory that evening.
Only days after Australia’s skulduggery in Cape Town was exposed, leading to lengthy bans for captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, former England captain Alastair Cook revealed the hunch.
Emphasising the huge differential in lateral movement achieved by the rival bowling attacks the previous winter, Cook said: ‘We did think in Perth, when the outfield was wet after the rain, how had they managed to get the ball reversing?
‘I didn’t see anything, (but) we’ve been pretty good on the ball, managing the ball so that it can reverse swing at certain times. Jimmy (Anderson) is obviously very good at reverse swinging, we got it going a touch at Melbourne either way, but with those drop-in pitches we didn’t get it going massively.’
