Yan Bingtao accused of breaking 'unwritten rule' vs Mark Selby at World Snooker Championship

Yan Bingtao has been criticised for breaking an ‘unwritten rule’ of snooker in his World Championship victory over Mark Selby. The Chinese star beat the Jester from Leicester 13-10 on Sunday night.

But pundits Jimmy White and Alan McManus were left unimpressed with what they claimed was a lack of sportsmanship from Yan in an incident which involved the referee Rob Spencer.

Yan, who won a marathon final frame which was the longest in Crucible history to claim the match, took his time over a tricky shot and asked for the ball to be cleaned. On commentary, White said: "Bingtao has looked at this shot for over a minute and he's not sure if he can pot it or not. He keeps getting down to pot it and then he asks Rob Spencer whether he can clean the cue ball.

"Now that is an unwritten rule amongst professional snooker players. Fair play to [referee] Rob Spencer for saying 'No, I'm not going to clean the cue ball' in this situation because he could put that cue ball back slightly wrong and then Bingtao can have an easy shot at this brown. But as it turns out he could pot the brown.

"It is something you don't do. It might have been Bingtao being under pressure and thinking of anything to win, but you don't do that in snooker." McManus agreed with White's assessment, though he did call for the Chinese player to be given the benefit of the doubt on this occasion.

"We don't know what was in Yan's mind, as to how underhand he was thinking," the Scot added. "I don't like seeing it, Mark Selby did not like seeing it and most of the players on tour would be the same. It's not something we encourage. We actually encourage the opposite.

"The referee won't be hoodwinked there anyway because Rob Spencer is a brilliant referee. Yan's young