In a shocking revelation, former England opener Marcus Trescothik has admitted that during the 2005 Ashes series he had used an artificial substance to shine the ball.

Trescothik in his recently published autobiography, “Coming Back to Me” wrote that the secret behind pacers Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones’ virtually unplayable reverse swing deliveries during the series was a special brand of mints, ‘Murray Mints’.

“I was firmly established as the man in charge of looking after the ball when we were fielding,” Trescothik was quoted as saying by “ The Australian “ in his autobiography.

“It was my job to keep the shine on the new ball for as long as possible with a bit of spit and a lot of polish. And through trial and error I finally settled on type of spit for the task at hand,” he added.