Ball Tampering
The state of the ball affects deliveries for a batsman. Even a new cricket ball is not perfectly spherical, but in two parts stitched together to form a seam. How a ball moves depends in part on how much air resistance there is to different parts of the ball, and therefore to what degree the ball has deteriorated. A cricket team will normally seek, for example, to polish one side of the ball and rough up the other side. The resulting variation in air resistance on the ball can have a marked effect.
Ball tampering has always been a feature of the sport. Players would use objects to rough up one side of the ball, and use resins and substances like Brylcreem to shine the other. This sort of ball tampering is against the spirit of the game and has always been against the rules. Though, as it can be difficult to spot, it has always gone on with limited sanction.
The television age has meant that from the 1990s onwards most international games have been televised. Slow motion replays have highlighted a number of incidents of ball tampering: some of which have been widely reported in the press. The third section of law 42 contains the rules and sanctions against ball tampering and requires the umpires to make frequent and irregular inspections of the ball to counter it. It also contains punitive measures against fielders who do tamper with the ball. Match suspensions may be implemented.
Some acts that may alter the ball are permitted. A fielder may polish the ball as long as no artificial substance is used, remove mud from the ball under the supervision of the umpire and dry a wet ball on a towel. But no-one may rub the ball on the ground for any reason, interfere with any of the seams or the surface of the ball, use any implement, or take any other action whatsoever which is likely to alter the condition of the ball.
If a fielder illegally changes the condition of the ball, the umpires replace the ball with another one with similar wear to the old ball before the ball tampering. The umpires also award five runs to the batting team and report the incident to the relevant authorities that the fielder is responsible to. These authorities are then expected to take further disciplinary action against the player as appropriate. If there is a further incidence of ball tampering in the innings, the same procedure is followed, but the bowler of the immediately preceding ball is banned from bowling further in that innings too.
Read more about this topic: Fair And Unfair Play
Famous quotes containing the word ball:
“Any balance we achieve between adult and parental identities, between children’s and our own needs, works only for a time—because, as one father says, “It’s a new ball game just about every week.” So we are always in the process of learning to be parents.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion, Dennie, and Palmer Wolf. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)