Former England skipper Nasser Hussain speaks up on Australia ball-tampering incident

Up until Friday, every Cricket lover had been in paradise, with four of the best teams in world Cricket competing against each other in two different Test matches. However, it all began to fall through when unsightly images of Cameron Bancroft of Australia, tampering with the ball flooded the television screens and the social media. Former England captain, Nasser Hussain recently expressed his opinion on what this means to the game of Cricket and how this entire episode may have dug up some old skeletons.

As reported by Givemesport, Nasser Hussain severely criticised the Australia management and the top-rank players of the team. Further, he expressed his scepticism of such unsporting activities having taken place in the Ashes and urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to take stringent actions. England recently lost the first Test against New Zealand by a staggering margin of an innings and 49 runs.

Nasser Hussain isn’t ruling out past possibilities of ball tampering

Hussain raised the looming question of how long has this discrepancy been going on in the game and brought in the inevitable context of the Ashes. “The problem with ball tampering is, once you get done like this and found out, it’s a little bit like match-fixing in that you start to question every other game. People start to question the Ashes. It’s why the ICC should clamp down harder on it,” he said.

Adding to his opinion, Hussain explained that several England players are wary of such unceremonious actions having been exercised in the regal series of the Ashes itself. “This is a very good Australian bowling line-up and has been for a while. But people will start questioning whether they’re a good cricketing side because they scratch the ball better than opposition sides. Or are they just better?”If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. So, Broad and some of the England guys out in New Zealand are kinds of saying keep an eye on what happened in the Ashes, we think this has been going on a little bit longer,” said Hussain.

Nasser Hussain slams Australian management

The former English skipper, who is not known to mince words, came down hard on the Australian management and questioned the ‘deafening’ silence the Australia coach, Darren Lehmann has been maintaining. “Not just from the coach, Darren Lehmann, but the bowling coach David Saker and the vice-captain David Warner. He seems to have a lot to say on the cricket field, but in the last 48 hours he has been silent,” said the 49-year old.

Hussain also criticised Australian skipper, Steve Smith and commented, “I thought Smith underplayed it when he went into that press conference straight after it happened. ‘We will learn from this and we will move on’, he said. Well, I’m afraid it’s not that simple, you’re the captain of Australia, a very proud cricketing nation, and to say you blatantly cheated, it’s very difficult for you to stay in your job as captain.”