All-rounder and spinner Ravindra Jadeja was team India’s wrecker-in-chief with five wickets on Day 1 of the first Test against Australia in Nagpur. However, the star batsman, who made his Test comeback after a brief gap due to injury, was embroiled in controversy after he applied an ointment on his sore finger.
He was accused of ‘ball-tampering’ and targeted by Australian media. Meanwhile, former Australia spinner Brad Hogg has come out in support of the spinner and silenced those questioning Jadeja and his brilliant form.
Taking to his Twitter, Hogg shared a close picture of Jadeja and in defence wrote, “If you look closely, there is a cream on Siraj’s hand which stood out clear as day on the TV. Jadeja applied it to his finger, at no stage did he put it on the ball. No need for further discussion.”
Indian cricket lovers also came out in support of Jadeja and mentioned that he had already gotten the better Aussie trio of Steve Smith, Matt Renshaw and Marnus Labuschagne at the time of the incident.
Commenting on Hogg’s tweet, a user wrote, “Thanks for confirming. Australia media look into it and delete your channels or burn the newspapers now.”
“Instead of airing fake news, why don’t the Australia media talk about the mediocre show put up by Aussies? Come on, you got to give due credit and respect for Indian team as they have outranked visitors in every discipline of Test cricket. May Cricket wins!” wrote another user.
Meanwhile, Jadeja put up a brilliant show and added a fine knock of 70 off 185 deliveries to help India to 400 all out on Saturday. Rohit Sharma had smashed an impressive 120 while Axar Patel’s 84 steered India to take a first innings lead of 223 runs.