Ramiz Raja recommends ball tampering: "a wonderful science", or what Imran Khan politely called "ball keeping".
Presumably Imran, as the "elder statesmen of the team", was the head scratcher. Wonder how Imran will greet Ramiz next time they meet.
The article has merit: where do you draw the line between shining the ball and tampering with the ball? How much advantage, if any, does bat now have over ball?
Since the best short form matches are low scoring affairs, I would love to see the ICC mandate skittish pitches for T20 and T50. Not Tests, since the deterioration of the pitch is essential to the caper.
Those of us who are not professional rhetoricians, when striving to make a point, often overstate our cases. A sportsman, accustomed to exquisite timing on the park, can get it wrong on the page. Could be a word limit thing. The editor barks for 720 words by midnight, but the writer runs out out of steam and has to pad.
Could also be that he's just talking balls. The parallel between Aussie sledging and Pakistani ball wrecking is ambitious. If "ball-tampering is being openly admitted by the players" it would be nice to know which players. And the second last paragraph, somewhere between stretching the point and off-topic rant, is a wild over-reach: "forced to revolt", "unjust system", "justified mutiny".
Offspinners were forced to revolt against the unjust system, and they created the doosra, which has managed to bring a semblance of balance to a skewed relationship and also reinvented a dying art. Some would say bowling the doosra is tantamount to chucking; others view it as a justified mutiny against the lop-sided rules bowlers operate under. The managers of the game need to understand that a six may bring momentary pleasure, but the fall of a wicket is, and will always be, the ultimate high in cricket.
Those of us accustomed to getting their point across with precisely the correct application of language and logic occasionally understate our cases: chucking the doosra is not a parallel with tampering and is tantamount to wanton, dishonest, barefaced cheating, with the game's spineless governors implicit in the rort.
The game has rules. The Laws of the game cover chucking and ball tampering, whereas they do not cover walking or sledging. Front bar philosophers (what's the equivalent in Pakistan?) may justify the breaking of the Laws by the pushing of the limits of the game's conventions - but they're not the same. That's why Justin Langer not walking in Hobart is not the same as Afridi munching the ball or Inzamam not taking the field, and why Bird, Murali, Botha et al are derided here when Fleming and Waugh are eulogised.
Posted by: nick | Sunday, February 07, 2010 at 07:23 PM
'since the best short form matches are low scoring' - I know what you mean, but there's something gloriously excessive about 400 playing 400 in an ODI, isn't there....?
Posted by: The Old Batsman | Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 07:22 AM
I read the article that claimed ball tampering was "just the way they learn to play in Pakistan" and equated with the Aussies and sledging. Maybe I'm biased, but there's world of difference from where I sit. You can ignore sledging; ball tampering is just plain cheating.
Posted by: Sid | Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 08:39 AM
Nick,
That's a very good question: what are the Pakistani equivalent of "front bar philosophers"?
OB,
"Gloriously excessive" strikes me as an appropriate term to describe 400 v. 400. Where does that leave 300 v. 300?
Sid,
As with Nick's comment: sledging is (mostly) legal gamesmanship, tampering is cheating.
Posted by: Tony T | Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 11:35 AM