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| South African player caught in ball tempering |
Dubai : South African players caught tempering the ball twice after that umpires changed the ball and penalized the team for five runs.
The incident occurred during the 31st over of Pakistani innings and about couple of overs after the tea when a South African player was caught on camera by rubbing the ball deliberately on the zipper of his trouser and another TV video showed another player making a hole in the ball with the help of his nail.
The umpires Ian Gould and Rod Tucker immediately called South African captain Graeme Smith for chat and fourth umpire Shozab Raza was seen bringing in the box of new balls after that the old ball was immediately replaced with new one, as reported by ESPN.
According to new ICC rules came into effect by October 1, the team found tempering the ball will be given first warning and after that the player found guilty will be penalized for 50 to 100% of match fees or ban for one test match or two one day or T20 matches, which ever comes earlier, but South Africa was penalized immediately which shows that umpires and ICC was sure of the guilty players.
Due to this act, South Africa has lost moral ground despite of their well control over the test match, as cricket lovers don't want to see such a silly moves from world's No.1 team.
At the end of third day's play, Pakistan were 134/4 with the deficit of 286 more runs and south Africa were merely 6 wickets away from victory.
Misbah ul Haq and Asad Shafique are on the crease with the score of 42 and 28 runs respectively.