Tourists swarmed on to Saltburn-by-Sea’s pier yesterday, guzzling fish, chips and Mr Whippy ice-creams, but a few hundred yards inland, another great Victorian landmark was eerily quiet.
The seaside town’s historic cricket ground, with its white picket fence and neatly mown outfield, stood empty. Not a single holidaying schoolchild was using its well-tended nets or ‘Arthur Heslop Indoor Training Facility’. The doors to a £600,000 lottery-funded pavilion were bolted shut.
All that could be heard was an occasional seagull, venturing inland from the North Sea. And this unseasonal calm turned out to be at the centre of an utterly toxic storm.
To blame is a bizarre cheating scandal which, in just a few short hours, has turned Saltburn Cricket Club from a beloved local institution, which last year celebrated its 150th birthday, into a symbol of sporting corruption which has made headlines around the world.
The whole thing revolves around an incident during Saturday’s match against Norton Cricket Club, in which Saltburn’s second XI was seeking to cement their place atop Division Two of the North Yorkshire and South Durham League.
Footage shows the match nicely poised, with Norton on 39 for 2, when its number four batsman, Noman Shabir, strode to the crease. He then played at and completely missed his first delivery, a ball from Saltburn’s Sam Morrison which had pitched outside the off stump.
So far, so normal. As the ball passed Shabir, however, something very strange had happened: the fielder standing at first slip clicked his fingers.
This imitated the sound of the ball nicking the edge of Shabir’s bat. And when the wicketkeeper then took the ball safely, the fielding side appealed for a catch. Having heard the noise, the umpire raised his finger to give Shabir out.
Amateur cricket player Brian Devine has been caught appearing to click his fingers to make it seem as though a batter had been caught behind when they hadn’t hit the ball
Devine has been dubbed as ‘Clicky Ponting’ on social media for his actions on the cricket field
The Saltburn player was seen on camera clicking his fingers each time the ball neared the bat
Norton batsman Noman Shabir protested that he didn’t touch the ball after being given out
Although the batsman was clearly outraged, his attempt to explain to the elderly umpire that he hadn’t actually touched the ball got short shrift. Saltburn duly went on to skittle out Norton for 143, giving them a thumping 159-run victory.
There things would have ended, were it not for the fact that (in common with many recreational cricket matches in the online era) the game happened to have been live-streamed online. A recording was preserved on the English Cricket Board’s ‘Play Cricket’ website.
A Durham-based amateur cricketer named Ben Mummery, who had been tipped off about the series of events, was therefore able to post footage to X, where he dubbed it ‘about the worst case of cheating I have ever seen in cricket’.
By last night, that clip had clocked up more than six million views.
Viewers then began to trawl the archives for other similar incidents. They promptly turned up dozens, suggesting that Saltburn (which, ironically, calls itself a ‘friendly, sociable and inclusive cricket club’) had been employing the cynical scam for more than a season.
In almost every one of the clips that have emerged, the same portly man can be seen standing at first slip, clicking his fingers as the ball whistles past. He has been widely identified as Saltburn’s opening batsman, one Brian Devine.
One particularly damning video was posted by Rory Cotterill, the captain of Middlesbrough CC’s second XI. He said there had been two more incidents like it in a single game they played on Saturday, June 27, which Saltburn won by 29 runs, ‘leading to a 15 and 16-year-old being cheated out of an innings’. He added: ‘I was at the non-striker’s end at the time, unknowingly watching them cheat in real time’.
Other cricket fans to weigh in included Piers Morgan, who dubbed the club’s behaviour ‘outrageous cheating’ and a ‘shameful scam’. Several posters dubbed Devine ‘Clicky Ponting’ – a play on the name of former Australian captain Ricky Ponting – on social media.
A formal investigation by the cricketing authorities is now under way. A statement from the North Yorkshire and South Durham League reads: ‘The League has received a formal complaint regarding alleged incidents in a Division Two game on Saturday 25 July 2026. A full investigation has been initiated and until such time as the formal processes are complete, no further comment will be made.’
Disciplinary options include booting Saltburn out of the league, which has been running since 1892 and is one of 30-odd ‘premier leagues’ at the top level of recreational cricket in England and Wales. Sanctions could also involve giving individual players, or even the entire team, lifetime bans or suspensions from the game.
For Devine, justice is perhaps already being served. The bespectacled businessman, who has played 481 matches in a 24-year amateur cricket career and was previously described on Saltburn’s social media feeds as a ‘legend’ of the game, was last night reported to have been suspended by the club.
I had earlier caught up with him by phone at Northallerton Auctions, a local livestock auction house where he works as company secretary.
As cows mooed in the background, I asked whether he had any alternative explanation (aside from cheating) for the finger clicking. ‘Naturally, I cannot comment on that,’ he replied. ‘I also cannot answer any questions because I am currently at work.’
Devine, a bespectacled businessman who was previously described on Saltburn’s social media feeds as a ‘legend’ of the game, was last night reported to have been suspended by the club
Saltburn-by-the-Sea’s historic cricket ground, with its white picket fence and neatly mown outfield, stood empty yesterday. Its team now face potentially being booted out the league
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Later, Devine faced the ignominy of being ditched by his official sponsor, a local Indian restaurant named Spices which he patronises regularly.
Proprietor Akmol Hussain told the Daily Mail: ‘I’m very shocked and disgusted by this video and can’t believe that Brian would do something like this. I’ve met him many times, but he has damaged the reputation of cricket and my restaurant.’
It was left to Georgina Vaughn, the mother of Devine’s partner Clare, to defend his honour. ‘It was only a little village cricket match and now it’s become this thing that’s all over the news and social media,’ she said. ‘It has got totally out of hand and there is nothing any of us want to say.’
Asked whether Devine was a man of integrity, she replied: ‘He certainly is.’
Statistics suggest otherwise, however. They reveal that in the 13 matches that Devine has played for Saltburn this season, wicketkeepers have taken an astonishing 39 catches. In the seven that he hasn’t played, they have managed just five. And in one single match, against Shildon Railway on July 18, no fewer than eight catches were claimed by wicketkeeper Josh Bowes.
To put that number in perspective, the record for wicketkeeper catches taken in a single men’s Test innings, over a period spanning 2,600 matches and 150 years, is a mere seven.
Bowes, a local electrician, has been the main beneficiary of Clicky Ponting’s scam. Despite only playing in about half the side’s matches, he has taken 31 catches this season, which is ten more than any other keeper in the league. Last season, he only managed to take 12 catches, and the year before he had a mere six to his name.
Wicketkeeper Josh Bowes, a local electrician, has been the main beneficiary of the scam. He has taken 31 catches this season, which is ten more than any other keeper in the league
The haul equates to almost four catches for every single match in which Bowes has played. In matches where Bowes doesn’t play, Saltburn’s wicketkeepers have claimed a more normal haul of around one catch per game.
Among the questions the league will now have to unpick is that of who, aside from Devine, was in on the scam. Videos of suspect wickets show several bowlers and fielders appealing with huge enthusiasm when the fielder clicks his fingers. Yet it is of course possible that they, like the umpire, believed they had heard the sound of bat on ball.
The truth about who knew what is likely to be found in the WhatsApp group in which team members discuss club affairs, though it’s unclear whether investigators will have the power to compel the club to release it.
At the bowls club next door to Saltburn’s cricket club, a member suggested it was highly unlikely the organisation would go out of its way to co-operate, telling me: ‘If the cheating has come from the top it would not surprise me. There are some nasty pieces of work among those who run it.’
Whatever the outcome, the cheating scandal is just the latest in a long and ignoble tradition that stretches back to the earliest days of the sport, which generally results in rules being updated.
In 1771, for example, Thomas White walked in to bat in a cricket match in Surrey, with a bat ‘fully as wide as the wicket itself’ making it impossible for him to be bowled out. Two days later, laws were passed limiting the maximum size to 4¼ inches.
The ‘Bodyline’ Ashes series of 1932, in which England’s bowlers aimed at the body and head of Australian batsmen in an attempt to nullify their star player Donald Bradman, led to rules changing to prevent large numbers of fielders being placed behind square on the leg side.
And Trevor Chappell’s famous decision to roll the ball on the ground in 1981 to prevent New Zealand achieving victory by hitting the last ball of a match for six, saw authorities update laws to make such deliveries illegal.
Fast forward to 2018, and Australia’s captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner were caught using sandpaper to rough up one side of the ball to help it move erratically in the air during a Test match against South Africa in Cape Town.
And now, we might have to add Saltburn’s very own opportunist to the scroll of dishonour of cheating cricketers: Clicky Ponting.
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