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Former England opener Marcus Trescothick has admitted in a new book that he illegally shone the ball by sucking on breath fresheners during the 2005 Ashes series.
The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said on Monday the unplayable reverse swing generated by pace bowlers Simon Jones and Andrew Flintoff — which was crucial to England’s 2005 Ashes triumph over Australia — may have been caused by Murray Mints, which, as with other artificial substances, is illegal.
The saliva from these mints aided swinging, Trescothick wrote in his autobiography “Coming Back To Me”.
“I was firmly established as the man in charge of looking after the ball when we were fielding,” he wrote.
“It was my job to keep the shine on the new ball for as long as possible with a bit of spit and a lot of polish.
“And through trial and error I finally settled on type of spit for the task at hand,” he added in an excerpt which appeared in Britain’s News of the World newspaper.
“It had been common knowledge in county cricket for some time that certain sweets produced saliva which, when applied to the ball for cleaning purposes, enabled it to keep its shine for longer and therefore its swing.”
Australian left-arm quick Nathan Bracken was verbally lashed by Jones after the 2005 series for suggesting the use of mints was common in English cricket, but he says he was misquoted by the media, and did not want to comment on Sunday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Trescothick, who retired from international cricket in March due to stress-related illness, also used the mints in the 2001 Ashes series and narrowly escaped detection during the Headingley Test.
“For the first time, as I dived to gather the ball at square-leg, I landed on my side and a shower of Murray Mints spewed out of my trouser pocket all over the grass right in front of the umpire,” he wrote.
“Fortunately neither he nor the two batsmen seemed to take much notice as I scrambled around on all fours trying desperately to gather in the sweets before they started asking awkward questions.”
It’s unlikely cricket’s governing body the ICC can open an investigation into alleged ball-tampering, the newspaper added.
India’s Rahul Dravid was fined half his match fee for rubbing a cough lozenge on the ball during a tri-series one-day match against Zimbabwe in Brisbane in January 2004.
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