Pak fume at tampering suggestions

Vettori had said that he had not seen anyone reverse swing the ball so much in the 12th over of a match.

According to reports, the Kiwi captain had lodged a complaint with the match referee Ranjan Madugalle asking him to hold an inquiry into how Gul had obtained so much reverse swing. Madugalle had declined Vettori’s request insisting there was no evidence to suggest that the Pakistan team might have tampered with the ball.

Gul finished with astounding figures of five for six from three overs in the match won by Pakistan, the best ever figures in Twenty20 cricket.

Ironically, the match took place at the Oval where three years back umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove had penalised Pakistan for ball tampering in an incident which snowballed into a major crisis in international cricket.

Gul said he could only laugh at Vettori’s suggestion. “What can one say. Nowadays the umpires keep on inspecting the ball after every over and at times even during an over,” he said.

His captain Younis Khan explained Gul had been working hard on the white ball in the nets to obtain reverse swing.

“He has been our most experienced bowler and the plan has been to use him in the middle overs because he gets the ball to reverse swing,” Younis said.

He also offered that the ball had been struck several times in the New Zealand innings particularly once by Scott Styris which made the ball rough.