The Illegal Practice of Ball Tampering
At the moment cricket is in a huge fix with all the allegations running around of spot fixing, match fixing and strange scoring patterns. During yesterday’s final ODI between England and Pakistan, another illegal but very common practice reared its ugly
head in the game. Shoaib Akhter, the superbly fast Pakistani bowler, seems to have been caught by cameras tampering with the shape of the ball. Ball tampering is nothing new, ever since the advent of swing bowling, many players have tried to change the shape
of the ball in order to alter its trajectory while in flight. It seems to stem from a desire to take wickets in a batsman friendly game. The desire to win sometimes overshadows the need to do what is right.
One of the aspects of the sport of cricket is taking as many wickets as possible in order to get the players of the other team out. Cricketing rules state that changing the shape of a ball by using spit or sweat and polishing is completely legal and we can
see this taking place in almost every match that is played today. The reason this is done is to get one side of the ball to become rough while keeping the other side shiny. One side of the ball will allow more air to pass over it and so the ball will move
in the air when bowled at high speeds. The illegal part of this practice comes from using foreign objects in order to change the shape of the ball.
Changing the shape of the ball using foreign objects takes many forms. Over the years sweetened saliva, fingernails, boot spikes, bottle caps, hair gel, dirt and many other objects have been used to roughen up one side of a ball and keep the other side shiny.
The very first instance of accusations surrounding ball tampering took place in 1992, when the Pakistani team were alleged to have tampered with the ball in order to achieve huge amounts of reverse swing. No evidence of this was found though.
There are several rules and regulations surrounding the penalties that can be awarded for ball tampering. The umpires have to monitor the condition of the ball at regular intervals and if any evidence of tampering is found the other team is awarded five
runs and the ball is immediately replaced. Players can also be fined, suspended and their image is usually tarnished. Over the years many examples have emerged in regards to ball tampering.
After the 1992 accusations, England came under fire in 1994 when the captain at the time Michael Atherton was accused of ball tampering. Cameras picked him up reaching into his pocket and rubbing dirt onto the ball. He claimed that he simply had dirt in
his pocket and was using it to dry his hands. He was fined £2000 by the match officials. Waqar Younis, the famous Pakistani former fast bowler and current coach of the team, was suspended in 2000 for tampering with the ball. In 2001, Sachin Tendulkar was suspended
for one game after cameras picked him up allegedly scuffing the seam of the ball.
One of the biggest ball tampering controversies took place in 2006 when Pakistan refused to take to the field after they were accused of ball tampering during a test match against England. They became the first team in history to forfeit a match. This year,
we have seen some of the strangest attempts to alter the shape of the ball in recent memory.
In January English bowlers Stuart Broad and James Anderson were accused of using the spikes of their boots to alter the shape of the ball during a test match against South Africa. Later in the year, the current captain of Pakistan, Shahid Afridi, was caught
on camera bizarrely chewing on a ball to change the shape of its seam. He claimed he had done it to help his team win and his image was seriously tarnished. The latest scandal also involves a Pakistani player; Shoaib Akhter was caught on camera allegedly using
his fingernails to scratch the surface of the ball and also using the spikes on his boots to change its shape.
The problem seems to be the fact that very light punishments are handed out for ball tampering. The practice is cheating and should result in harsh penalties for the players involved. In baseball ball tampering results in immediate removal from the game
and a ten game suspension. Cricket needs punishments such as these to discourage future incidents. Hopefully with numerous cameras all around the field and umpires being highly critical, ball tampering incidents will decrease in the years to come.
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