Trescothick has written in his new autobiography Coming Back To Me that saliva produced by sucking the mints aided swinging. "I was firmly established as the man in charge of looking after the ball when we were fielding. 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. "Through trial and error I finally settled on the best type of spit for the task at hand," he wrote in an excerpt that has appeared in News Of The World.

"It had been common knowledge in county cricket for some time that certain sweets produced saliva which, when applied to the ball for cleaning purposes, enabled it to keep its shine for longer and therefore its swing." Australian paceman Nathan Bracken was verbally lashed by Jones after the 2005 series for suggesting the use of mints was common in English cricket. But he has always claimed he was misquoted and yesterday did not want to re-enter the debate. It is believed Bracken's teammates have not seen the funny side of the claims.

Trescothick, who also used the mints during the 2001 Ashes, recalled a comical moment during the Headingley Test in that series: "As I dived to gather the ball at square leg, I landed on my side and a shower of Murray Mints spewed out of my trouser pocket all over the grass right in front of the umpire. "Fortunately, neither he nor the two batsmen seemed to take much notice as I scrambled around on all fours trying desperately to gather in the sweets before they started asking awkward questions."

Trescothick was the second-highest run scorer in the 2005 series behind current England captain Kevin Pietersen. However, it was the English bowling that was credited with the boilover, as Australia's finest batsmen looked all at sea against a barrage of deliveries swinging wildly in both directions. The 2-1 win by England was their first Ashes victory in 18 years.

The impact of using the mints was discovered by accident, it seems. Warwickshire's Dermot Reeve noticed that his bowlers had the ability to keep the ball swinging far longer than any team they faced, but no one knew why, Trescothick wrote. "He realised the player in charge of polishing and keeping the ball clean was his top-order batsman Asif Din, and what he did to keep his concentration up was to chew extra strong mints. It took a while for word to get around, but once it did sales of sweets went through the roof.

"I tried Asif's confection of choice but couldn't get on with them. Too dry. So I had a go at Murray Mints and found they worked a treat." It is unlikely the International Cricket Council will open an investigation into the alleged ball tampering. India's Rahul Dravid was fined half his match fee for rubbing a cough lozenge on the ball during a one-day tri-series match against Zimbabwe in Brisbane in January 2004.