Australia coach criticises Broad's 'blatant cheating'

Australia coach Darren Lehmann has accused England's Stuart Broad of "blatant cheating" and urged fans in Australia to make sure the all-rounder "cries and goes home" during the return Ashes series. Broad has annoyed Australia's players and supporters with his behaviour during the ongoing Ashes, which England lead by an unbeatable 3-0 heading into the final Test at The Oval in south London starting on Wednesday. The 27-year-old Broad angered his Australian opponents in particular during England's narrow 14-run first Test win at Trent Bridge, his Nottinghamshire home ground, when he refused to walk when given not out at a crucial stage of the game after a thick edge deflected off the wicketkeeper's gloves to slip. He then appeared to deliberately waste time to ensure lunch was taken on a tense final day as Australia eyed a dramatic victory. Former Australia batsman Lehmann was unimpressed by Broad's failure to walk, telling Australian radio station Triple M in an interview broadcast on Wednesday: "Certainly our players haven't forgotten, they're calling him everything under the sun as they go past. "I hope the Australian public are the same because that was just blatant cheating. I don't advocate walking but when you hit it to first slip it's pretty hard," he said. "From my point of view I just hope the Australian public give it to him right from the word go for the whole summer and I hope he cries and he goes home," Lehmann added. "I just hope everyone gets stuck into him because the way he's carried on and the way he's commented in public about it is ridiculous." Broad's superb bowling sparked an Australia collapse in the fourth Test at Chester-le-Street that saw England to a 74-run win, but that didn't appear to concern Lehmann, who said Broad's conduct in the series opener had heaped further pressure on the umpires, much criticised for several contentious decisions this Ashes. "He hit it to first slip ... and the biggest problem there is the poor umpire cops all the crap that he gets in (the) paper and Stuart Broad makes them look like fools," he added. "From my point of view it's poor, so I hope the public actually get stuck into him." Earlier this week, Broad said the incident had not been as clear-cut as it seemed at the time. "It was an odd one. There was no particular noise because of the noise of (Brad) Haddin's gloves," he said. "It's a bit silly when people say it was nicked to slip because actually it was edged to the keeper's gloves and flew off the gloves to slip. "I went down to the other end and Ian Bell was like 'what happened there, I didn't hear anything?' Agar came up to me and asked if I'd nicked it because he wasn't sure. "So it wasn't as clear cut as everyone had thought, although I knew I'd hit it." Source: AFP