The great attraction of sport is its unpredictability. The soccer and T20 world cups are prime examples. Sponsors and advertisers don’t part with their hard-earned if the viewers and listeners choose to read a book or take in a podcast instead of tuning in, and they don’t tend to tune in when the result is expected.
Players get paid well because they provide contests of spectacle. One-sided fixtures or games that favour a particular skill over another are uninteresting. Memorable cricket matches are about an even balance between bat and ball, which is why 20- and 50-over matches might provide action, but rarely tension or drama, with obvious exceptions.
Test cricket on bland surfaces or without a contest can be withering, but often memorable for those qualities. England’s victory at Rawalpindi earlier this week featured the batting completely overwhelming the bowling on a surface that Daniel Ricciardo would appreciate. I was appalled by the first day’s play – 500-odd off 75 overs does not make a contest, it makes a mockery.
England’s approach under Kiwi Brendon McCullum gets nominated as “revolutionary”. The decision by Ben Stokes to declare and set Pakistan a reasonable target was brave and revolutionary.
The final day in Rawalpindi brought tough going for Stokes’ bowlers: the spinners weren’t teasing or tempting, just trundling; Pakistan were playing with grit and grind, sneaking toward a famous victory. Another approach on the tepid surface was required. Enter reverse swing.
Stokes, Ollie Robinson and the wily James Anderson began to manufacture swing and sway, and the match changed to infamy for Pakistan and a record English win. In the commentary box one of the most famous purveyors of old-ball swing, Waqar Younis, was flanked by former England captains Nasser Hussain and Mike Atherton.
England celebrate a remarkable Test victory after the last Pakistan wicket falls.Credit:Getty Images
With a knowing wink and a nudge they sought insight into the mysterious leather and twine magic from the Harry Potter of reverse swing. Waqar described seam angles, subtle wrist angles and akimbo release points. His co-commentators teased for an admission of skulduggery. They got none, yet the cheeky grins seemed to tell another story.
England won a fantastic Test match with a few bare minutes to spare. The final hour had the tension and drama not to be found in white-ball games. It will forever be a memorable match, thanks to fearless batting, a declaration without consequence and, finally, reverse swing bowling. At no stage did the sympathetic commentators question just how the England bowlers achieved such dynamic movement.
Atherton, of course, had been caught rubbing dirt on the ball in 1994 and coughed up a £2000 ($3600) fine.
In South Africa in 2010, when Anderson and Stuart Broad were accused of stopping the ball with their spikes and picking at the seam in an effort to affect it, Hussain’s comments were damming. “Stuart Broad and James Anderson were wrong to behave in the manner they did and I’ve no doubt that if a player from another country did the same we’d have said they were cheating,” the former England captain said at the time. No fine, no action taken. The South African team declined to lay a charge, even though they protested at the press conference.
Warner’s original penalty was grossly disproportionate when compared to every other occurrence at international level.
Marcus Trescothick admitted in his autobiography, Coming Back To Me, that he was in charge of treating the ball with Murray Mints (found to be the optimum lolly after some lengthy research and development in county cricket) during the 2005 Ashes, won by England in a series where the home team’s old-ball swing was a dominant feature.
Shahid Afridi tested his incisors on the seam in 2010 and got the massive suspension of two T20 matches.
In 1990, New Zealand’s Chris Pringle, after taking career-best figures of 11-152 in Pakistan, admitted to using a bottle top to doctor the leather – a trick we saw in Pakistan in the early 1980s. No action was taken.
In 2000, Waqar himself was fined half his match fee and banned for one match for ball alteration. Sachin Tendulkar, in 2001, was seen scratching the ball and suspended by match referee Mike Denness for one Test, but that was overturned when the Board of Control for Cricket in India intervened and Denness was removed from his duties for the rest of the series.
Pakistan’s Waqar Younis celebrates the wicket of Graham Hick in 2000.Credit:Getty
Rahul Dravid was caught on camera applying lozenge residue against Zimbabwe. Clive Lloyd was not to be intimidated and fined him half of his match fee – but there was no suspension.
Virat Kohli was seen shining the ball after putting his fingers in his mouth at Rajkot in 2016 in a match against England, but the visitors decided against making a formal complaint, so no action was taken.
Faff du Plessis in 2013 was caught using his zipper to scuff the ball and was fined 50 per cent of his match fee. His manger described the punishment as “harsh”. Du Plessis was later caught orally influencing the ball condition in the 2016 Test in Hobart, which the Africans won, and was fined his match fee.
That is the same Test match where it is alleged two Australia cricket officials exhorted the team to do “anything it takes to win”. The proposition being: adulterate the ball only as much as you can get away with.
Faf du Plessis addresses the media in 2016.Credit:Getty
In 2019, Nicholas Pooran was found guilty of ball alteration and suspended for four T20 matches – he probably appreciated the rest from the tedium.
Proteas seamer Vernon Philander was fined 75 per cent of his match fee in 2014 in a match against Sri Lanka for ball tampering, and South Africa won the Test. No further action was taken against him.
David Warner questioned South Africa’s ball-handling procedures in 2014 when they were throwing the ball into the ground. Warner was fined 15 per cent of his match fee for making such accusations in the media!
Murray Mints, sweets, dirt, zippers, fingernails, sandpaper – all vital ingredients to equalising the game. Aren’t you sick of all this run-making? We need balance in the game and if the pitch preparers or the ball manufacturers can’t get their acts together then human ingenuity will find a way.
Australian opener David Warner.Credit:Getty
It looks like the ICC have got their adulterated leather penalties just about right – it’s naughty, but not even close to a hanging offence.
The penalty for using illegal bats is (the umpires have a frame to check bat dimensions, but it is never used), wait for it … there are no ICC penalties for cheating with a bat. So a batter can try and use an oversize blade, either thicker or wider (and this has been known to happen) and there are no repercussions. Talk about lack of balance in the game.
Which brings us, unfortunately, to the current brouhaha in Australian cricket. In a week leading into the glorious fete that is the Adelaide Test, the media attention on Warner has threatened the credibility of the game’s administration. CA’s independent panel surely consist of persons with little or no genuine cricket expertise, no historical knowledge of the game and no personal experience upon which to form an appropriate opinion.
Warner’s issues were strictly related to the playing of the game, rather than legal or civil matters. How CA could outsource this piece of delicate work smacks of the highest level of buck passing.
Warner’s original penalty – a one-year playing ban and permanent leadership ban – was grossly disproportionate when compared to every other occurrence at international level.
There were other precipitating factors at play regarding ongoing displays of undesirable behaviour by the Australian team, and by Warner individually, including a schoolyard shouting match with Quinton De Kock. Nevertheless, they may as well have sentenced him to “transportation for the term of your natural life”.
The argument to restrict his captaincy roles is distinctly different from that of leadership. His expertise in all forms of the game strongly suggests that, after retirement, he would be a valuable asset to the game from club to international level. After all, even lifer convicts were given pardons and contributed to building a nation.
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