Ramprakash sympathises with ball-tamperer

Mark Ramprakash has said he has sympathy for the player who picked the seam during a match against Nottinghamshire in the early stages of last season.

The player, who refused to own up and whose identity has yet to be revealed despite an internal enquiry, cost Surrey eight points - ultimately sending the county down to the second division.

"I have a lot of sympathy for the person who did it because it was naivety," Ramprakash told the BBC. "Whoever it was did it for the right reasons."

During the game at The Oval, Nottinghamshire had amassed an enormous total of 692 for 7 declared, with the captain Stephen Fleming making 238. Ramprakash, captaining Surrey in Mark Butcher's absence, takes up the story:

"We were bowling, Notts were about 200-0, the umpires came over and said: 'Look we feel this ball doesn't look right and we feel something is wrong with the quarter-seam.'

"This time they said we are not happy with this, somebody has obviously tampered with the ball. I had never come across someone picking the quarter-seam before.

"Obviously somebody was trying to gain an advantage for Surrey and quite rightly we were penalised and punished. To this day we don't know who did it, and of course people say those were the eight points that cost us and ensured we were relegated."