AUCKLAND: England pace bowler Stuart Broad branded the Australians hypocrites on Sunday as the ball-tampering scandal erupted in South Africa amid continuing tension there over verbal abuse involving players and spectators.

Broad also questioned why Australia would want to tamper with the ball when they managed to generate reverse swing in the recent Ashes series in conditions that “you wouldn’t expect the ball to reverse”.

“It’s a shame,” Broad said when questioned about the scandal in South Africa, at the end of the fourth day’s play in the first Test between England and New Zealand in Auckland.

There have been growing calls for Smith to be sacked as captain after his admission.

Broad said he found it difficult to understand why Smith would authorise the illegal scuffing of the ball.

“Look at the Ashes series that we’ve just played. In virtually all of those Test matches they reverse-swung the ball in, sometimes, conditions that you wouldn’t expect the ball to reverse,” he said. “So I don’t understand why they’ve changed their method for this one game.”

Broad said he had to take Smith’s word that they had not used that tactic before.

“Steve said it’s the first time they’ve tried it and there’s no evidence that they were doing this in the Ashes series from what I’ve seen.” The Australia-South Africa series has also been marred by conflict over abuse involving both players and fans. Broad said he found it amusing that Australian coach Darren Lehmann could be critical of the abuse his players had received from some South African spectators.

“Any England players who’ve toured Australia can laugh at those comments because some of the things we hear on the pitch by Australian supporters, known as banter, well having toured South Africa I know it’s worse than South Africa.”

Asked if he felt there was an element of hypocrisy in the Australian complaint, Broad said: “That’s your word, not mine but I would agree with you.”

Broad referred to the 2013 England tour of Australia when Lehmann “basically asked the country to send an opposition player home crying. We lost the series, but it didn’t make me cry, I quite enjoyed the series and the banter.

“I then can’t understand why he’s then come out and moaned about a different country and what they’re saying to [the Australian] players.

“Just from the outside, it looks like Australia have started a lot of fights but then moan when someone comes back.”

Meanwhile, former England skipper Michael Atherton said the “premeditated” nature of Australia’s ball-tampering during the ongoing third Test against South Africa made it different from the “dirt in pocket affair” that blighted his career.

Australia captain Steve Smith dramatically admitted his side were guilty of ball-tampering after the third day’s play in Cape Town on Saturday.

He added the “senior leadership group” had spoken about breaking one of the Laws of Cricket during the lunch interval before team-mate Cameron Bancroft did so — and then tried to hide his offence from the on-field umpires — in the next session of play.

Back in 1994, then England captain Atherton was seen taking dirt from his pocket and rubbing it on the ball during a Test against South Africa at Lord’s.

He was later fined 2,000 for failing to disclose the dirt to the match referee but remained as England captain despite calls for his resignation.

But Atherton said the deliberate nature of Australia’s actions, allied to the fact it involved a junior team member in the 25-year-old Bancroft, appearing in just his eighth Test, made it a different case to his own.

“I think what makes this more of a problem for Steve Smith is that this is a rather premeditated effort and then getting the young kid, Cameron Bancroft, to do it,” Sky Sports television cricket commentator Atherton said in an interview.

“Plenty of of people have been done for it in the past but this one has a slightly different smell.

“The context of the series as well, it’s been a difficult series in terms of the behaviour from both sides and just has given the impression that things are a little out of control,” said Atherton.

“I think that’s where Cricket Australia will be asking questions of Steve Smith — you are the captain, are you in control of the ship?

He added: “They were caught bang to rights and they’ve admitted it.

“But Faf du Plessis, Smith’s opposite number has been done twice [for ball-tampering] — ‘Mintgate’ in Australia [in 2016] and shining the ball on the zip [against Pakistan in 2013].”

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2018