Today at the Test Match

[Khandro]

Reporting on todays events, Alan Tyers states in The Telegraph "There have been accusations of ball-tampering in the past, but this sort of sneaky pitch swapping - which may have been carried out with the help of a looped CCTV camera - is surely beyond the pale. Darrell Hair is believed to be investigating." Can anyone enlighten me about this accusation please.

[sunny-dave]

I suspect it's an ironic/humorous comment on the fact that the pitch being used in Abu Dhabi was expected to be a "flat as a pancake boring run feast" but has actually turned out to be "helping the spinners a bit and probably producing a result".

Nothing sinister ... probably

[johne1892]

I haven't seen anything from today but it sounds like they are meaning something like they have chosen a wicket (pitch) to play on but have then changed it for some reason e.g. they felt it wasn't going to help the spin bowlers etc.. As far as I am aware once a wicket has been selected it can't be changed.

The looping CCTV means that rather than taking continual fresh pictures, it has been setup to loop so that the same picture is shown on the TV where as in fact there are people out on the pitch doing things that won't be recorded on the CCTV (a bit like what they did on the film Speed when they were getting people off the bus)

I hope that helps.....if it's nothing like that at all I apologise now!

[Khandro]

Thanks for that chaps. Tired as I was last night, I guess I missed the irony. Let us see what the day brings.