England’s James Anderson and Ravindra Jadeja of India were found not guilty of breaching the ICC Code of Conduct by Gordon Lewis AM, the Judicial Commissioner.
Lewis, who held the hearing into the verbal spat between the two players via video conference from Melbourne, reached his decision after six hours.
Witnesses, including some Indian and English players, provided evidence and were cross-examined by the respective legal counsels.
- All you want to know about Anderson-Jadeja altercation...
Anderson, who won the man-of-the-match award for his match haul of 7-77 in the 266-run victory for England, arrived at the hotel almost an hour ahead of the scheduled 9 am local time start of the hearing.
The Indian team was scheduled to leave for Manchester on Friday morning, where the fourth Test will be played from August 7.
Most of the 18-member squad and support staff did leave, with exception of skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, coach Duncan Fletcher, Jadeja himself and Gautam Gambhir, who were witnesses in the alleged incident.
Dhoni and Jadeja were batting for India when they returned to the pavilion during the lunch break. The latter was allegedly pushed on the way to the dressing room inside the pavilion. Ravichandran Ashwin and Gambhir were said to be present at the boundary line.
England too presented their witnesses, namely wicket-keeper Matt Prior and all-rounder Stuart Broad, who arrived just before the hearing was scheduled to start.
It is believed that the entire morning was spent in recording the deposition of the witnesses, and this process took nearly four hours.
Prior and Broad left the premises together around 1pm, with Anderson overlooking from the hearing room’s window.
An hour later, Gambhir left with his family and Fletcher too departed, both in separate cars.
The hearing stretched further into a sixth hour as the depositions went on.
It is understood that the Indian management had brought forth key video evidence in the matter, which was previously not available since the CCTV installed in the pavilion wasn’t yet in working condition for the second Test.
Around 4pm, almost six hours after the proceedings started, Dhoni, Jadeja and physio Evan Speechly (another witness) were seen leaving the premises.
The incident occurred during the lunch break of the second day's play in the first Test in Nottingham last month.
The Indians had alleged that Anderson pushed and abused Jadeja, while the English counter-charged the visiting all-rounder.
Jadeja was fined 50 percent of his match fee by the International Cricket Council after being found guilty of playing against spirit of the game.
The ECB and Anderson were represented at the hearings by Nick De Marco, while Adam Lewis QC represented Jadeja.
The hearings were also attended by the two team managers, the ECB’s Paul Downton, the BCCI’s Sundar Raman and MV Sridhar, the ICC’s General Manager – Cricket, Geoff Allardice, and the ICC’s Ethics and Regulatory lawyer, Sally Clark.
- Coverage: India's tour of England 2014
Image: Ravindra Jadeja (left) shakes James Anderson's hand after the Lord's Test
Photograph: Philip Brown/Reuters
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