Peter Siddle sympathises with Kagiso Rabada’s ban and called for the end of stump mics. 

The former Australia quick felt that the ban was unnecessary and that the competitiveness of the Test series, between England and the Proteas, has been heavily affected by Rabada’s absence.

‘A similar thing happened to Michael Clarke in the Ashes in 2013-14 having a go at Jimmy Anderson,’ he told cricket.com.au.

‘At the end of the day the TV company comes out and just apologises.

‘It has to be stopped. There’s a bit of emotion on the field, it’s just a bit of fun, it’s a tough contest out there and sometimes the emotion comes out.

‘Sometimes it doesn’t sound great, but it’s not meant [to cause] any harm to the person at the other end, it’s just a bit of anger or frustration.

‘We’re going to miss one of the most exciting players in Test cricket at the moment, he’s going to miss a Test because of someone else’s mishap.’

Siddle believes that if swearing caught on mics are banned, then all on-field swearing should suffer a similar ruling.

‘If that had been the case in the last five to ten years, probably myself and a few of my teammates would have missed a fair bit of cricket I would have thought,’ he added.

‘I was pretty lucky not a lot of stump mics were used by the TV companies in most of my career.’

Rabada will miss the second Test, which begins on Friday.