Australian media has been hell bent of creating controversy out of nothing since the start of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and in one case, it went too far as the issue went to the match referee in the first Test against India in Nagpur. Team India’s star on the first day of the four-match Test series, Ravindra Jadeja, in a clip was seen applying a substance on his left index finger, after taking the same from the back of the palm of pacer Mohammed Siraj.
The Australian media alleged some wrong-doing and former Australian skipper Tim Paine added unnecessary fuel to the fire by saying, “interesting.” However, Jadeja had already taken three wickets for 30 runs by then, including the big ones of Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith. Now, after the day’s play on Thursday, February 9 Jadeja and skipper Rohit Sharma were called by the ICC match referee Andy Pycroft and were shown the video of the all-rounder using the substance.
As per ESPNCricinfo, the Indian team said that Jadeja was applying a pain relief cream on his bowling finger and there was nothing more to it. On the other hand, Pycroft had no intention to reprimand the bowler as he just wanted to inform them about the incident. No charge has been laid against Jadeja.
Jadeja went on to add a couple of more wickets to his tally dismissing Peter Handscomb and debutant Todd Murphy as he ended up with figures of 5/47. It was a memorable outing for Jadeja, who has been out of the game for almost six months, after sustaining a knee injury in the Asia Cup in August 2022.
Australia were bundled out for 177 as apart from Jadeja, off-spinner R Ashwin took three wickets and pacers Mohammed Shami and Siraj took one each. Team India owing to skipper Rohit Sharma’s century have taken a 32-run lead so far.
