Umpires are starting to recognise what is effectively the signature of a team's designated ball polisher. The magicians are under scrutiny after incidents in South Africa and Antigua
Storm in a cup of tea, as Ken Barrington used to say, or heinous crime against cricket? The suggestion that a ball used by England in the third ODI on Wednesday had suffered "unnatural deterioration" in the opinion of the umpire Marais Erasmus is one that has been visited before.
The last time, at The Oval last year, during a Champions Trophy match, Aleem Dar changed a ball in an action without explanation but heavily loaded with innuendo. No sanctions were applied, such as the addition of a five-run penalty at the time (it can hardly be applied retrospectively), and although the appropriate law, referencing fair and unfair play, says that an official once-only warning has to be given to the captain, none was given, just as none was given to Stuart Broad on this occasion.
The very issue of ball-tampering is one that sends people into fits of indignation the levels of which transgressions of another nature do not seem to reach. We all know the stories about lifting the seam or using grease to help polish the ball, and the way that generally umpires tended to ignore such actions, or at best, offer a quiet word. What is now understood by ball-tampering, though, is the careful treatment of the ball into a condition that will enable it, with the aid of a skilled operator, to reverse-swing. In the second and third Tests of the recently-concluded Tests between South Africa and Australia, reverse played a key role in the outcome of the matches, with each side insinuating malpractice by the other.
But again, despite the close scrutiny that television brings to matches these days, and bearing in mind that there is suspicion TV directors are on the look out, no evidence has been turned up. Some umpires, having suspicions but no evidence, will change the ball under the pretext of it having gone out of shape, surreptitiously using the measuring rings used in women's cricket, for a smaller ball, rather than the usual ones.
The fact is that all teams, in dry bowling conditions, try to get the ball to reverse-swing, and some are better than others. Over the past decade, going back to the 2005 Ashes series, England have used reverse more effectively than almost any other side, something other teams have not just envied but attempted to replicate, or alternatively spike.
In the last Ashes series the instructions to groundstaff were that they left the outfield as long as possible in order to help prevent the ball cutting up. Generally, the accepted method is to get the ball roughed up in as short a space of time as possible, and then work on one side to smooth it, and allow the other to continue roughing. In their final warm-up match in Ahmedabad, prior to the first Test in India at the end of 2012, England deliberately set out to see how quickly the ball would reverse and Tim Bresnan managed to get it going after nine overs.
There are two accepted ways of roughing the ball, leaving aside the obvious one of it getting pounded into the concrete stands. Firstly, on a hard abrasive pitch, the seamers can bowl "cross seam" so that the ball will generally land off the seam and so scuff it, which occasionally, if it lands right, will mean the seam gets knocked up too. This is how Broad maintains the ball scuffed in Antigua. The second way is for fielders to throw the ball in on the bounce so that it scuffs on the outfield. If anyone wonders why fielders insist on shying at the stumps when there is no chance of a run out, and never seem to hit them, then consider that they are not actually aiming at them in the first place. Umpires seem to frown on this, although it has never been adequately explained why. These methods are not peculiar to the England team.
Broad's claim that the replacement ball had similar characteristics after he had bowled some cross-seam has validity. It is not quite clear why only one ball, which is inspected at the end of every over anyway, as well as at the fall of a wicket or an interval, was deemed to have unnatural deterioration. Erasmus was firing a shot across the bows, not just aimed at England but, with the World T20 imminent, all teams: we are on your case, he seemed to be saying.
However, it needs to be said that there are some magicians out there. To pretend that preparation of the ball does not go beyond natural, if concentrated, scuffing is unreasonable. It is said that the umpires themselves are starting to recognise what is effectively the signature of a team's designated ball polisher. Whatever was or was not said to England has lost its immediate relevance anyway, as any sanctions or official warnings expire at the end of a series. But what the series in South Africa, and this brief ODI series in Antigua have shown is that the intensity of the scrutiny is there now. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.
Storm in a cup of tea, as Ken Barrington used to say, or heinous crime against cricket? The suggestion that a ball used by England in the third ODI on Wednesday had suffered "unnatural deterioration" in the opinion of the umpire Marais Erasmus is one that has been visited before.
The last time, at The Oval last year, during a Champions Trophy match, Aleem Dar changed a ball in an action without explanation but heavily loaded with innuendo. No sanctions were applied, such as the addition of a five-run penalty at the time (it can hardly be applied retrospectively), and although the appropriate law, referencing fair and unfair play, says that an official once-only warning has to be given to the captain, none was given, just as none was given to Stuart Broad on this occasion.
The very issue of ball-tampering is one that sends people into fits of indignation the levels of which transgressions of another nature do not seem to reach. We all know the stories about lifting the seam or using grease to help polish the ball, and the way that generally umpires tended to ignore such actions, or at best, offer a quiet word. What is now understood by ball-tampering, though, is the careful treatment of the ball into a condition that will enable it, with the aid of a skilled operator, to reverse-swing. In the second and third Tests of the recently-concluded Tests between South Africa and Australia, reverse played a key role in the outcome of the matches, with each side insinuating malpractice by the other.
But again, despite the close scrutiny that television brings to matches these days, and bearing in mind that there is suspicion TV directors are on the look out, no evidence has been turned up. Some umpires, having suspicions but no evidence, will change the ball under the pretext of it having gone out of shape, surreptitiously using the measuring rings used in women's cricket, for a smaller ball, rather than the usual ones.
The fact is that all teams, in dry bowling conditions, try to get the ball to reverse-swing, and some are better than others. Over the past decade, going back to the 2005 Ashes series, England have used reverse more effectively than almost any other side, something other teams have not just envied but attempted to replicate, or alternatively spike.
In the last Ashes series the instructions to groundstaff were that they left the outfield as long as possible in order to help prevent the ball cutting up. Generally, the accepted method is to get the ball roughed up in as short a space of time as possible, and then work on one side to smooth it, and allow the other to continue roughing. In their final warm-up match in Ahmedabad, prior to the first Test in India at the end of 2012, England deliberately set out to see how quickly the ball would reverse and Tim Bresnan managed to get it going after nine overs.
There are two accepted ways of roughing the ball, leaving aside the obvious one of it getting pounded into the concrete stands. Firstly, on a hard abrasive pitch, the seamers can bowl "cross seam" so that the ball will generally land off the seam and so scuff it, which occasionally, if it lands right, will mean the seam gets knocked up too. This is how Broad maintains the ball scuffed in Antigua. The second way is for fielders to throw the ball in on the bounce so that it scuffs on the outfield. If anyone wonders why fielders insist on shying at the stumps when there is no chance of a run out, and never seem to hit them, then consider that they are not actually aiming at them in the first place. Umpires seem to frown on this, although it has never been adequately explained why. These methods are not peculiar to the England team.
Broad's claim that the replacement ball had similar characteristics after he had bowled some cross-seam has validity. It is not quite clear why only one ball, which is inspected at the end of every over anyway, as well as at the fall of a wicket or an interval, was deemed to have unnatural deterioration. Erasmus was firing a shot across the bows, not just aimed at England but, with the World T20 imminent, all teams: we are on your case, he seemed to be saying.
However, it needs to be said that there are some magicians out there. To pretend that preparation of the ball does not go beyond natural, if concentrated, scuffing is unreasonable. It is said that the umpires themselves are starting to recognise what is effectively the signature of a team's designated ball polisher. Whatever was or was not said to England has lost its immediate relevance anyway, as any sanctions or official warnings expire at the end of a series. But what the series in South Africa, and this brief ODI series in Antigua have shown is that the intensity of the scrutiny is there now. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.