Star cricketer Stuart Broad has come out to, well, bat for his England teammates after a damning screenshot sent Twitter into meltdown.
With India maintaining a 154 run lead heading into the final day of their Test against England, an image appears to be circulating around social media which has raised questions of 'ball tampering' among internet sleuths.
During the 35th over of India's innings, batsman Ajinkya Rahane played a block shot which saw the ball trickle along the turf and fall at the feet of England's Mark Wood.
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Wood then tried to kick the ball through his teammate Rory Burns' legs but Burns was well aware of the attempted nutmeg and trapped the ball under his foot with his spikes.
Video of the harmless incident seemed innocuous at the time, but eagle-eyed viewers (mainly Indian cricket supporters) managed to find a damning screenshot of the clip which made the moment seem far worse than reality.
To put it simply, the still images make it look like Burns was tampering with the ball - a big no-no under strict cricket rules.
And, as you can probably imagine, Twitter went into a frenzy when the screenshots started trending.
But not everyone was onboard with the ball-tampering claims, it seems.
Now English bowler Broad - who is sidelined with a series-ending calf injury - has leapt to the defence of his teammates, encouraging skeptics to watch the full video rather than commentate on an image alone.
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"Woody tried to nut meg Burnsy by tapping the ball through his legs (a very common occurrence) and he missed and kicked the ball there by accident," Broad replied to one tweet.
"Instead of screenshotting the pic, watch the video - quite plain and easy to see."
He continued in another thread: "As I'm sure you're aware from watching the full footage, it wasn't deliberate was it. End of story."
Ball-tampering is something us Aussies are all too aware of.
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Back in 2018, the Australian team became engulfed in a huge ball-tampering scandal which later became known as 'Sandpapergate'
The incident, which took place during the Test match against South Africa, saw young Australian batsman Cameron Bancroft use sandpaper in an attempt to alter the swing of the ball.
Cameras inside the stadium picked up on what was happening and the tactic quickly landed Bancroft, David Warner and team captain Steve Smith in hot water with cricket authorities.
The duo ended up copping lengthy suspensions for their roles in the scandal and some even lost their contracts with other domestic teams.
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