Not so sweet: Sri Lanka cricket captain Chandimal charged with ball tampering
Match officials charge Dinesh Chandimal with altering the condition of the ball after viewing television footage
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Sri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal denied tampering with the ball by using a sweet in his pocket before his team raced into a substantial 287-run lead on the fourth day of the second test against the West Indies in Gros-Islet, Saint Lucia, on Sunday.
Following the controversy of day three, when the start of play was delayed by two hours with the Sri Lankan captain refusing to lead his team onto the field for the continuation of the West Indies first innings, the International Cricket Council confirmed a charge of “altering the condition of the ball” – effectively ball tampering – against Chandimal.
Match officials charged Chandimal after television footage from the final session’s play on Friday appeared to show the captain taking sweets out from his left pocket and putting them in his mouth, before applying the artificial substance to the ball which the umpires viewed as an attempt to change its condition.
If found guilty, he could be suspended from the third and final test of the series, beginning in Barbados on Saturday.
While the ICC’s cricket committee has recommended increasing the punishment for ball tampering to a ban of four tests or eight one-day internationals, that suggestion has yet to be ratified.
The allegations echoed a 2016 controversy when South Africa captain, Faf du Plessis, was fined 100 per cent of his match fee after being caught on camera applying sugary saliva from a mint in his mouth to the ball during a test in Australia.
Despite being at the centre of the storm, the Sri Lankan skipper put aside that immense distraction in supporting the in-form Kusal Mendis in a fifth-wicket stand of 117 that helped lift the visitors from the depths of 48 for four to 334 for eight in their second innings and a lead of 287 by the close of play on Sunday.
