Controversy dies... or does it?

There’s nothing like a good controversy to spice things up. There hadn’t really been too much to get the match referee interested in this series except for Stuart Broad’s "inquiry" about the amount of time South Africa took to review his lbw decision in Centurion.

That all changed on the third day at Newlands – and Broad was again the centre of attention. A fancy piece of footwork was caught on camera as Broad stopped the ball then stepped on it with his size 12s. It soon became clear the issue was escalating and by the close South Africa had “raised concerns" about the state of the ball. That was enough to evoke the spectre of ball-tampering.

The South African media immediately latched on. “Ball tampering furore,” was the front page Cape Times headline, which didn’t leave much to the imagination. On the IOL website there was a blown-up screen shot from E.tv, the news channel, which showed a large foot about to go down onto the ball.

The UK papers also went big with the story. “England ball-tampering bust-up!” screamed the Sun, while another red-top, the Mirror, said “Stuart Broad's balls up spikes England.”

After making their issues known to the match referee, South Africa had until the start of play today to make their complaint official. The clock was ticking as play grew nearer (well, it wasn’t quite that tense), till shortly after 10am the South Africa spokesman confirmed they wouldn’t take it any further.

A couple of hours later the ICC issued its own release, saying it “now considers this specific matter to be closed”, So, almost as quickly as the controversy erupted it fizzled away. Or did it?

The problem with the accusations that South Africa made, and they were pretty serious, is that you can’t suddenly back-track on them. Did they really think England had done something wrong or not? If so, take the complaint all the way.

There’s only one Test remaining in the series, but it’s shaping as a decider. Recent events mean we could be in for a tense finish to this contest.