Tampering happened during Aus-Pak series in UAE, claims Waqar

Dubai: Pakistan cricketing legend Waqar Younis has added fuel to the ball-tampering controversy involving Australian paceman Peter Siddle by insisting it was still rife in the game.

Waqar said he recently completed a commentary role in Abu Dhabi where Australia played and "it was happening then", reports The Nation. The first bowler banned for ball-tampering, Waqar had not seen the drama unfold in Hobart on Tuesday. But he was hardly surprised when told of the accusations being hurled by the Sri Lankans at Australian quick, the paper said. "To be really honest, I`m not surprised. If people want to close their eyes and say, ``Oh, it`s not happening and cricket is very clean``, you`re kidding me, that`s rubbish," Waqar was quoted, as saying. Waqar was banned and fined 50 percent of his match fee for lifting the seam off the ball during a one-day game against Sri Lanka in 2000. "There`s some sort of tampering going on. If you go back to the 1960s and 1970s, you`d see players putting Vaseline on the ball, people eating mints and putting their saliva on the ball, or picking at the seam. There is heaps going on," he added. "All I`m saying, when this happened during our time, I don`t know if it was to do with we coming from the sub-continent and we were just too good and people didn`t like that. Now this has come. It doesn`t really surprise me," said Waqar. "If you come to the subcontinent and the pitches they play (on), you still see people throwing the ball around on the ground, trying to scuff it up as soon as possible. The England team do it," he added. ANI