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February 5, 2010Posted on 02/05/2010 in in Ball tampering
Afridi offers food for thought
The resulting uproar over Shahid Afridi's snack has reignited the debate about ball tampering, and in the New Zealand Herald Adam Parore says Pakistan got away with it for 15 or 20 years because no one really knew what was going on.
Clearly, with reverse swing still being apart of test cricket, minor doctoring of the ball is still going on. I don't believe it is possible to get reverse swing without some illegal work on the ball. But it is being done in a way that is actually good for the game, giving the bowlers more chance when batsmen could absolutely dominate.
Along the same lines, David Leggat wonders if Afridi would have opted to take a chomp at the ball had he known a healthy dose of the stuff you clean toilets with might find its way to his stomach.
January 9, 2010Posted on 01/09/2010 in in Ball tampering
Third umpires should take call on tampering
In the Guardian, Duncan Fletcher calls for a change in the way suspected ball tampering is handled. Instead of asking opposition players to lodge a formal complaint, he wants the responsibility of bringing up the issue to shift to the third umpire.
The current system ... only creates animosity between teams. You could see that in the language being used by the players this week. Andrew Strauss has called South Africa's behaviour "malicious".
You want a game to be a hard battle but this situation leads to bad blood between players. It is wrong that the ICC was waiting for South Africa to put in a complaint about England. It is the ICC's responsibility to look for evidence of ball-tampering, or of other offences, such as throwing.
In the Independent, Angus Fraser writes that the stigma of being caught tampering should be treated in the same manner as a batsman not walking when he has knowingly hit the ball. In the same piece, he also recalls the dread that filled him when he was required to walk out and save a Test as a No. 11.