Mohali: ‘Mintgate’ has taken over the narrative in world cricket. South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis was fined his entire match fee after he was caught on camera sucking a mint, and using his saliva to shine his ball during the second Australia-South Africa Test.
The batsman was booed by the Adelaide crowd when he came to out on the first day of the third Test between Australia and South Africa, on Thursday.
It didn’t stop there; Virat Kohli was also accused of ball-tampering after a video from India-England Rajkot Test showed the Indian captain allegedly using a similar method to shine the ball.
Former England skipper Michael Vaughan has come out in support of du Plessis and Kohli. The former batsman, who is in India, conducted a experiment to show that shinning a cricket ball with mint saliva doesn’t not affect its ability to swing.
The satirical take on the ‘Mintgate’ was filmed and uploaded on his official Twitter account. To make it more funny, Vaughan used fruits instead of a cricket ball to conduct his experiment.
Locals were asked to bowl with fruits, including an orange, an apple and a lemon rubbed with mint saliva.
Through scientific research I finally find out whether Mints help swing ..!!!! #MintGate #AUSvSA pic.twitter.com/RS7GVMwsab
— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) November 24, 2016
At the end of the experiment, Vaughan concluded that mint saliva had no effect on the ability of the fruits to swing.
