finger-clicking trickery<\/a> \u2060has been handed a two-year suspension, the North Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League has said.<\/p>\nThe fielder Brian Devine, dubbed \u201cClicky Ponting\u201d on \u2060social media in a nod to former Australia captain Ricky Ponting, was accused of tricking umpires by clicking his fingers to make the \u2060sound of a ball nicking the bat as deliveries were missed and caught by the wicketkeeper.<\/p>\n
The video footage went viral on social media and made international headlines earlier this year. A three-person disciplinary panel reviewed the \u200cfootage and considered player interviews and written statements before imposing the ban.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe player concerned is suspended from all cricket under the ECB\u2019s [the England and Wales Cricket Board] jurisdiction for two years, from 30 September 2026 to 29 September 2028. This covers playing, coaching, umpiring, scoring and managing junior teams,\u201d the NYSDL said in a statement on Friday.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Saltburn \u2060Cricket Club have been fined 300 pounds ($402.87) and \u2060their second XI has been relegated to Division Three of the NYSDCL and will start the 2027 season with a 60-point deduction, the league added.<\/p>\n
Devine and Saltburn admitted the charges, but the club appealed against their sanction.<\/p>\n
Saltburn said in a statement reported on gazettelive.co.uk: \u201cThe club fully participated in the disciplinary proceedings and accept the decision of the appeal following the original decision from the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement to the Press Association, the league said, \u201cThe league recognises the strain this has placed on many people, especially those who were abused online and in person.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ask everyone to respect that the formal process is now complete. The league will make no further comment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ricky Ponting, who led Australia to two 50-over World Cup titles, told the Reuters news agency that he found \u2060the controversy amusing, although he was less \u2060impressed that his name had become associated with the player.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a bit of a chuckle to myself and pretty much forgot about it after that,\u201d he said in an \u200cinterview earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess it wasn\u2019t a nice thing to have my name associated with someone who\u2019s blatantly cheating but \u2026 honestly I \u200chad \u200ca laugh and a joke about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amateur cricketer caught clicking his fingers while fielding to trick umpire into thinking the batsman had edged the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,2057,588,85,3586],"class_list":["post-955554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-europe","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}