England cricket team player Ben Stokes had a bad experience in pink-ball Test against India at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
After facing criticism for claiming a clear bump catch of opener Shubman Gill, the Durham all-rounder found himself in the midst of a raging controversy after he was caught applying saliva on the ball.
It all happened at the end of the 12th over of India’s innings when Ben Stokes took the ball from Stuart Broad and applied saliva on it, that too in front of the on-field official Nitin Menon.
Menon was quick to spot Stokes’ misdemeanor. He immediately sanitized the ball before calling the all-rounder for a chat in what appeared to be a friendly warning.
In the wake of Covid-19, the International Cricket Council has placed a ban on the usage of saliva on a cricket ball in June 2020. According to the rule, the match-officials can give up to two warnings to the fielding team, post which five runs can be deducted from the team’s tally.
The incident rounded off what was a day to forget for Ben Stokes. The all-rounder’s struggled against spin continued in the third Test and this time it was Axar Patel, who pinned in plumb in front of wickets for a 24-ball 6. With the ball too, he couldn’t do much as he was carted for 19 runs in his three-over spell by Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
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