Image courtesy of: The Telegraph

Bopara labelled Willis’ accusations as “annoying, sad and depressing”

Yet another England player has lashed out against former captain Bob Willis over his remarks about the national team tampering with the ball to get it to reverse swing during the recently concluded Champions Trophy.

Limited overs coach Ashley Giles took the first shot at Willis, while pace bowler James Anderson was the second, and now even all-rounder Ravi Bopara has joined the club.

Bopara branded Willis’ accusations as “annoying, sad and depressing”.

“We were doing well in that tournament and I felt it was unacceptable to make that sort of noise,” Bopara told the London Evening Standard. “It was annoying, sad and depressing, especially in the middle of a global competition.

“When England are doing well, why does something negative have to come from it? Why not just get on the wave with England and enjoy it?”

Willis claimed on Sky Sports that England were scratching the ball during their match against Sri Lanka, which prompted the on-field umpires to change the ball.

Bopara himself was in charge of looking after the ball and there were rumours and speculation arising at the time that he could have been the culprit behind the tampering allegations.

However, the International Cricket Council (ICC) soon put an end to that after finding no evidence to implicate Bopara of any wrongdoing.

During their match against Australia at Edgbaston, England used the reverse swing they got off the pitch to their advantage, but struggled to get the same type of movement during their match against Sri Lanka.

“We’ve learned over the last 12-18 months that we need to look after the white ball as well as we do the red ball,” Bopara said. “We discussed as a team how we were going to shine it. You have to look after them to make them ‘talk’.

“You want that seam to be standing up as long as possible; you want one side to be very smooth, which helps with lateral movement. If you can make the red ball swing, you should be able to do the same with the white one.”