Mitchell Claydon misses Sussex's Blast defeat after hand-sanitiser ball-tampering ban

The ECB have confirmed that Mitchell Claydon, the Sussex seamer, missed Thursday's T20 Blast quarter-final defeat against Lancashire due to a nine-match suspension for ball-tampering after applying hand sanitiser to the ball.

Claydon, the veteran Australian who joined the club from Kent last winter, admitted a charge relating to altering the condition of the ball after being pulled up in a Bob Willis Trophy match against Middlesex, in which he took three first-innings wickets.

Sussex initially suspended him for six games across formats, releasing a short statement at the start of September ahead of their Bob Willis Trophy fixture against Surrey, before he returned to the side for the final two matches of the Blast group stage.

He was left out of the side for the quarter-final on Thursday after initially being named in a 16-man squad - his replacement, Will Beer, batted at No. 8 and was not used with the ball - and the ECB announced after the game that he had been made unavailable for selection.

A Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) panel met on Wednesday to discuss Claydon's sanction. He was charged with a breach of two ECB directives which said that his conduct should be regarded as "unfair and improper" and "prejudicial to the interests of cricket and likely to bring the game into disrepute".

The CDC panel took into account the six-game suspension that Sussex had already imposed, and suspended him for a further three matches, including the Blast quarter-final. He will now miss the first two games of the 2021 season.

Sussex will also face a CDC hearing panel after being charged in relation to the incident, which could see them docked points for the 2021 season.