LONDON: England’s Ja­mes Anderson and India’s Ravindra Jadeja will face a preliminary hearing regarding their International Cri­cket Council (ICC) disciplinary charges on Tuesday, the global governing body has announced.

Both players were charged by the respective opposing teams following an altercation during the lunch break on the second day of last week’s drawn first Test at Trent Bridge.

The ICC announced on Thursday that the first stage of the disciplinary process would involve a preliminary hearing via a teleconference conducted by Australian judi­cial commissioner Gor­don Lewis on Tuesday — the day after the ongoing second Test at Lord’s is due to end.

The task at hand for Lewis is to, the ICC said, ‘address preliminary issues’ before setting a date for a full hearing.

It is unlikely, although possible, that a decisive outcome will be reached on Tuesday.

What could well happen is an amendment to the level of charge facing either Ander­son or Jadeja. England were shocked that Anderson was charged by India at all and particularly taken aback that he was deemed by the tourists to have committed a Level Three offence — the second most serious under the ICC code — for allegedly “abusing and pushing Jadeja”.

That led England to retaliate with a Level Two charge against Jadeja on Wedn­esday.

In the statement, the ECB said that it was ‘surprised’ at the Anderson allegation. “James Anderson categorically denies the accusations made against him and the ECB have pledged their total support for the player.”

Meanwhile, leading India newspaper The Hindu reported that the ‘abusing and pushing’ incident involving Jadeja and Anderson happened in the presence of two Indian cricketers.

It is learnt that Gautam Gambhir and Ravichandran Ashwin saw Anderson pushing Jadeja on the steps leading to the Trent Bridge dressing room on the second day of the first Test.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2014