The television replays shows no signs of Siddle ball tampering in any way whatsoever

Sri Lanka batsman Mahela Jayawardene has revealed that the team management’s suspicions of Australia having tampered with the ball during the first Test in Hobart were raised after spending a lot of time watching close-up replays of the match.

Sri Lanka had spoken to match referee Chris Broad, who noted that he failed to find any evidence that would implicate Australia of being guilty of ball tampering.

Jayawardene stated that the Sri Lankan team management had only reacted in such a way after watching a close-up of pace bowler Peter Siddle’s grip on the ball.

“[The ball tampering concerns] weren’t from our management,” he said. “It was something that was shown on television and that was it. We just wanted to make sure that the officials saw what we saw on television. We never made any official complaint about it. We just moved on. It’s up to the officials to see if anything happened and if so, take action. If not, move on.

“For the TV guys to zoom in and stop, obviously they saw something funny. Otherwise, we had five days of Test cricket and nothing else was shown. It’s up to the officials to find out, even from the TV guys, to see whether there was something funny happening, and if that is the reason that they showed it. Otherwise they don’t have to show something like that on national television where millions of people are watching this match. That’s what prompted us to find out what was going on. Like I said, we don’t have any proof. We didn’t see it happen.”

When asked about the ball tampering claims, Siddle noted that the Sri Lankan team management must have taken the replays out of context.

“I wake up in the morning, I thought today if I ran out there and ball-tampered in front of 15 cameras and a lot of people watching the game I will get away with it?” Siddle said. “That is a ridiculous statement. Why would I want to jeopardise that when I know we can go out there and do everything in the spirit of the game and win. That’s how we play and we always play. There’s nothing to it at all.”

Australia captain Michael Clarke supported Siddle and mentioned that his team would never do anything to jeopardise the “spirit of the game”.

“At the end of the day, the ICC have made it very clear there was nothing there,” Clarke said. “I 100% believe we always play in the spirit of the game. I don’t think any of the Australian players would ever jeopardise that or do anything to ruin our reputation. We play hard on the field but we understand there is a line you can’t cross and we play the right way.”

Broad stated that he had already spoken to Australia coach Mickey Arthur about the ball tampering claims during the tea break on the third day of the match.

However, Jayawardene believes that Broad should have talked to the Australian players to find out what had really happened.

“The easiest thing for them to have done is to at least have a chat with the Aussie management or the captain and see what happened,” Jayawardene said. “If they haven’t done that, we’d be a bit sad about it. That’s the minimum requirement. Everyone saw on television, what they zoomed in on. It’s not that just we saw something, it was on television.”

After being told that the replays had revealed no sign of Australia ball tampering in any way, Jayawardene noted that he was pleased with the results and ready to move on.

“The teams will fight it out there in the field – there’s no love lost in that,” Jayawardene said. “Off the field we are pretty good friends and the players can have an unofficial chat about it. It’s not that big a deal. I think they’ve got the talent to win matches without doing those kinds of things.”