KNOW BALL!

Somewhere, buried deep within the bowels of the AGB's Test match posts, there are comments about intentional no balls and wides - collectively "know balls" because you know you're bowling one - and wickets taken with the seventh ball of overs. Good luck finding them.

Anyone bowling the last over of a match who wants to spook the last batsman with the prospect of an extra ball should bowl a huge wide instead of a no ball to avoid the chance the batsman might "get out" off the no ball. Few things deflate the fielding side more than a no ball "wicket" and getting one, or not getting one, when they are desperately trying to dislodge the last pair in a tight Test match would be particularly aggravating. Nor would the viewing public forget about it any time soon. Not that a huge no ball delivered from a couple of metres over the line wouldn't scare the hell out of a batsman. Maybe I'd bowl one last ball, kind of like when NFL coaches call time-outs to "ice" the kicker just as he is about to attempt a game winner. And then there's the aborted run-up.

Anyway, Mike Selvey:

Simple tweaks to stop bad judgment shocking the decision review system

One other thing struck me early on in the series, although this would require a change in the laws of the game. During the tense final part of the first Test at Centurion, Graham Onions was charged with facing the penultimate over of the game, from Morne Morkel. Cricinfo's description of the first ball is thus: "94.1: Morkel to Onions, 1 no ball, no ball again. Onions rises with good length ball and defends."

So far, so good. But this meant that despite him transgressing, and Onions playing a perfectly respectable shot, Morkel had six more goes at getting a wicket rather than five, which seems unfair. The extra run was irrelevant. Had Onions or Paul Collingwood, who faced the final deliveries of the over, been dismissed from the seventh ball, it would have been a travesty.

So I propose that following the umpires' call of no ball, and any ensuing play, the batsman should have the chance to decide whether he accepts the no ball, with its extra run, (and perhaps avoids losing his wicket as a result) or turns it down, forfeiting the run but also precluding the extra ball. A bit like playing advantage in rugby.

Andy Flower, for one, thought the idea had merit, as did Mike Procter, the great South African all-rounder with whom I had dinner last week. Procter looked at me benevolently. "Selve," he said, "I often used to go through the crease to tailenders and bounce them a couple of times to soften them up, knowing I still had six to get them out."

Comments

[Lou]

The amount of time-wasting the English team gets up to, they are the worst around now that they are continually playing for draws, the Saffers were owed more than one extra ball.

[Tony]

I reckon England learnt their time-wasting tricks under Fletcher. Now that he is at SA will the Varks try the same tactics.

[Hewy]

Re 'know ball'. Just use the rule from Indoor cricket - ask the batsmen whether he wants the no-ball or wide rebowled. But is it really that big a deal?

Re timewasting. Comedian Stephen Fry gave a speech at Lords in 2009 directly after the Cardiff test match...

I have been asked to say a few words – well more than a few. “You’ve twenty minutes to fill,” I was firmly told by the organisers. 20 minutes. Not sure how I’ll use all that time up. Perhaps in about ten minutes or so Andrew Strauss would be kind enough to send on a physio, that should kill a bit of time.

[Tony]

You know something? I must have had a strange dream. Going back to the early Noughties, I swear I saw a Test match, probably from the West Indies, in which the team batting last pulled some astounding strokes - that's strokes as in sly maneuvers, not strokes as in cricket shots - to drag a Test out into the half light and get the umps to call off the match. Fake injuries, fake sickness, fake new gloves, fake pitch gardening, fake pretend I can't see, fake can I take guard please, fake chats mid-picth, you name it. Every ball was followed by a performance of Orson Welles-like invention. For ages I assumed it was the Shrees v the Windies, but looking though the list of draws between ALL Test nations I'm buggered if I can find the match. I first got Foxtel in January 2000 and I don't think the match was later than 2003.

Anyway, here's the list. Anyone got any idea which match it might be, or have I lost the plot?

[Hewy]

Not sure if this is what you were talking about, but there was a Pakistan v England test match in Pakistan. England were chasing on the last day and it was getting down to the wire regarding both runs and wickets. Moin Kahn was captain and he was trying every trick to extend the game into the dark where it would be a draw or Pakistan would pick up the wickets and win. England refused to come off but, ironically, it got so dark that it was easier to bat than it was to field - when you're batting the ball is only coming from one spot and there's a white screen behind it. England got plenty of runs whilst the fielders were standing around not knowing where the ball went to, and went on to win.

Thre was of course the famous 1992 world cup semi final SA vs England. The common story is that SA got screwed by the rain delay calculations. What is rarely mentioned is that when England batted, the rain was supposedly coming late in their innings and Kepler Wessels did everything in his power to hold the game up to try to prevent England from scoring any more runs till it rained and SA could chase a comfortable revised target. The storm clouds passed over, it didn't rain, and Kepler's tactics actually meant that their innings didn't start till much later and then the rain came when they had only two overs left - which was actually well after the scheduled close of play. And so began a proud history of big tournament choking.

[Tony]

No, I'm pretty sure it's not Pak v Eng.

Did you see that South Africa finished top of their group in the U19s in New Zealand, but got slapped out in the quarter final by the Shrees?

[Lou]

And the sixth seed Aussies are through to the semis on the back of Mitchell Marsh's first decent batting performance. How one does laugh.

[Carrot]

It was in the Caribbean, Tone - and it was a pair of West Indies tail-enders doing pulling the stalling tactics. I think it MIGHT have been West Indies vs. Sri Lanka - maybe India, one of the two. I think one of the more stupid tactics was a call for a new pair of gloves at the end of an over, followed by a new bat the next over, and then the physio the next. It might not have been exactly like that, but it was definitely pretty blatant. I seem to remember Brian Lara, who was in one of his spells of not being captain, apologising profusely to the other side at stumps.

It's a pretty clear-cut example of what we've been talking about in the AGB lately, namely that bad behaviour is definitely not something that is restricted to Australian sides, they just get away with it less.

[Tony]

Carrot,

Thanks, brilliant. I've been puzzling about that for ages. Figured it was a visiting team that pulled the strokes and searched accordingly, but your tip led me to hunting down matches in which the Windies held on for a draw via dodgy shenanigans.

West Indies v South Africa, 3rd Test, 2001, Barbados.

Easily the worst time-wasting I've seen. I remember wondering at the time that if the umpires were powerless to prevent such blatant time-wasting, then they were virtually powerless to prevent any time-wasting.

[Carrot]

Glad to help- even if the Shrees and Injuns suggestions were bum steers! How do you search a statistics engine for time-wasting?