Why ICC should allow a spot of spit and polish
At a well-known boys’ high school the headmaster often reminds the pupils that smoking behind the old gymnasium is not permitted.
It is quite clear to anyone making the briefest of visits to the rear of the gymnasium that boys have been smoking there for decades. The point about the announcement is to keep the smokers in one, remote place where the masters won’t see them. It is also a tacit admission by the school that they can’t stop the practise, but they can maintain an element of control.
It is almost two years since Faf du Plessis deliberately opened his mouth wide during a Test match against Australia to reveal a large, white mint on his tongue. He then stuck fingers in his mouth and rubbed the saliva on the ball before shining it.
It was the act of a man tired of being treated like a school boy and frustrated by the hypocrisy of the institution.
Cricketers have been applying sun cream and Vaseline (Brylcreem was popular in the 1950s) to the ball for more than 50 years. It was impossible to police back then and it remains so today.
Even Steve Smith had the good grace to admit back then: “We, like every other team in the world, shine the ball in exactly the same way.”
Call it “protest action” if you will, but it resulted in a fine and demerit points. The International Cricket Council effectively maintained their stance that applying “artificial” substances to the ball is against the laws of the game, but there is no way they can police it so please do it subtly and everyone can get along in peace.
Sri Lankan captain Dinesh Chandimal was suspended for the current series against SA for doing exactly the same thing, except he was inadvertently caught by one of the television cameras — again, it was so blatant that the match referee was unable to turn a blind eye, much as he wanted to. If only Chandimal had gone behind the old gym, he would be playing.
I recently discussed the issue of ball-tampering with a match referee and he was adamant that the application of artificial substances was against the laws of the game, full stop.
I asked him how the law could be effectively applied and he agreed it could not, unless the ball shiners complied by making their skulduggery as obvious as Du Plessis and Chandimal had. He agreed that random inspections of players’ mouths was not practical.
And what about abrasive substances on players’ trousers, or on a towel, or on the plasters on players’ fingers? Are the umpires empowered to check those? (Dried superglue is popular as it is invisible to the naked eye but hard enough to speed up the deterioration process on the rough side of the ball that is necessary to generate reverse swing.)
He confirmed they are. Do they? No… they feel it opens them up to accusations of cheating. They fear it could become legal and very messy.
The question Du Plessis raised 21 months ago — what constitutes “artificial” — has still to be answered. Sugar is not artificial, but perhaps processed sugar is? Would it be acceptable if the man at midoff chewed a stick of sugar cane and rubbed the resulting saliva on the ball?
You see how ridiculous it could become. Perhaps the cricket council’s catatonic state is understandable.
The simplest way forward is to legalise the application of anything to the ball that can be kept on a players’ skin (rather than in a tube or bottle). After all, it’s been that way since before television was even invented. Intentionally damaging the ball, however, is different and far more possible to monitor. That is where tougher penalties need to be focused. Sandpaper and bottle tops are very different to mints and jellybeans.
Not that it would have made the slightest bit of difference to the Proteas during the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle. They warmed up on a flat, spinless pitch in Colombo and then collapsed in embarrassing fashion against three spinners on a surface providing lavish turn. It was the 20th consecutive Test match in Sri Lanka to finish in a positive result — a record.
Like New Zealand, which have won 14 of their past 20 Tests at home, the underdogs are finally discovering the ways and means to fight back by emulating India’s extreme, home team-friendly conditions.
It prompted Du Plessis to suggest the prematch toss be discontinued in favour of the visiting team choosing whether to bat or bowl first. That and embellished ball shining.
It would be a brave new world of Test cricket.