Sir Alex
Banned
No relevance. Unless it can be conclusively proven like today's case that a wilful tampering was done by a team to alter the ball's condition, it is fair to press charges. What happened at Oval was colossal mis judgement by Hair.I suppose this raises the hypothetical about what would happen if, when the umps make one of their regular inspections of the condition of the ball, they saw what appeared to be human teeth marks in the leather but the camera hadn't picked up the culprit?
After Ovalgate it'd be a brave umpire to make any sort of call based on the condition of the ball alone.
I'm assuming a five-run penalty wasn't imposed in today's game either? If not one wonders exactly what players would need to do to incur it.
However i agree completely as to the stupid 5 run rule.