Smith denies ball-tampering chants

Australian captain Steve Smith was accused of ball-tampering after video footages emerged him touching his lips and rubbing his hands over the ball to make it shine. Even though he brushed the allegations aside without paying much heed to it.

Smith laughed off the reaction, after watching a replay of the video, saying it was his standard technique for helping shine the white ball with no assistance from any foreign substance.

"It was all spit. People said something about lip balm. If you look at my lips they are pretty dry. I certainly didn't have any of that on," he told reporters yesterday.

Smith was seen using saliva from the corner of his mouth in the second ODI against England, which Australia lost by 16 runs to concede the series 3-0 with two matches still remaining.

"It is just the way I get the spit into the side of my mouth and get some spit onto the ball. There was nothing in it."

Steve Smith responds to questions raised over whether he used lip balm to polish the ball in Sunday's #AUSvENG ODI pic.twitter.com/QHxbN6fqJA

— cricket.com.au (@CricketAus) January 21, 2018

England last month blasted ball-tampering allegations against them as a "beat-up" after footage of England bowler James Anderson working the ball with his thumbnail drew suspicions during their Ashes test match in Melbourne.

England coach Trevor Bayliss slammed the accusations after former Australian test players Shane Warne and Michael Slater suggested it was not allowed.

"It's a beat-up. As soon as I saw the headlines I raced into the umpires and that was their words: 'Nothing to worry about, it was a beat-up, absolutely fine'," Bayliss said at the time.

England sealed the five-match ODI series in Sydney Sunday when a stunning century from Jos Buttler helped the visitors to a unbeatable 3-0 lead -- a remarkable turnaround after Australia had trounced them 4-0 in the Ashes Tests.