The West Indies star batsman Nicholas Pooran has been handed a four-match suspension by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for ‘changing the condition of the ball’.
Five demerit points were added to the record of the 24-year-old, who was caught on camera scratching the ball🍌 with his n💞ails during the third ODI against Afghanistan in Lucknow on Monday (November 11).
The ball-tampering charge was leveled by on-field umpires Bismillah Shinwari and Ahmed Durrani and third umpire Ahmed ꧙Pakteen, as well as fourth umpire Izatullah Safi.
Pooran admitted the offence on Tuesday and accept🍸ed the sanction proposed by match referee Chris Broad and, therefore, there was no need for a formal hearing.
🔜He will, therefore, now miss the next four T20I games for the Windies.
“I want to issue a sincere apology to my teammates, supporters, and the Afghanistan team for what transpired on the field of play on Monday in Lucknow,” said Pooran in his statement.
“I recognize that I made an extreme error in judgment, and I fully accept the ICC penalty. I want to assure everyone that this is an isolated incident, and it will not be repeated. I promise to learn from this and come back stronger and wiser,” he added.
West Indies had completed a 3-0 sweep against Afghanistan in the ODIs, winning the third game by five wickets with eight balls to spare. Pooran had a successful series with the bat and was the Man of the Match in the second game for smashing 67 off 50 balls. He w🐷as likely to have kept wickets f𒉰or West Indies in the T20Is, but they have Denesh Ramdin in the squad as back-up, and the 34-year-old will now get to add to his 68 T20I caps, the last of which came a year ago, in November 2018.
