West Indies batsman Nicholas Pooran has been hit with a four-game ban for changing the condition of the ball in his team’s ODI against Afghanistan on Monday.

Pooran conceded he made “an extreme error in judgement” after admitting to the charge and will miss the West Indies’ next four T20I games to go with five demerit points on his record.

Vision showed him scratching the surface of the ball with his thumbnail during the third ODI between the nations at Ekana International Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.

“I want to issue a sincere apology to my teammates, supporters and the Afghanistan team for what transpired on the field of play on Monday in Lucknow,” Pooran said.

“I recognise that I made an extreme error in judgement and I fully accept the ICC penalty.

“I want to assure everyone that this is an isolated incident and it will not be repeated. I promise to learn from this and come back stronger and wiser.”

The 24-year-old Pooran has represented his country 30 times in the limited-overs formats, scoring one century and five half-centuries.

He was found to have breached level 3 of the ICC Code of Conduct, which carries a suspension of two Test matches or four ODI/T20I matches.

The maximum penalty is 12 suspension points, which equates to 6 demerit points.

Pooran’s charge was levelled by on-field umpires Bismillah Shinwari and Ahmed Durrani, third umpire Ahmed Pakteen as well as fourth umpire Izatullah Safi.

West Indies won the match by five wickets with eight ball to spare, finishing 5-253 in response to Afghanistan’s 7-249.

Pooran contributed 21 in the successful run chase after making scores of eight and 67 not out (in a man of the match performance) in the first two games of the series.

West Indies completed a 3-0 clean sweep of the ODI series.

The first T20I between the pair will be staged at Lucknow on Thursday AEDT.