Shahid Afridi: Time to legalise ball tampering?

Bat and ball / Andrew Hughes / 01 February 2010 / Leave a Comment

"I'll have a chicken biryani and a slice of Kookaburra, please."

"Ball tampering is an issue that perfectly illustrates the tension between appearance and reality that underlies this most Victorian of sports."

Last Sunday, Shahid Afridi added another chapter to an eventful career by chewing on a cricket ball in the middle of a one day game. He has been widely condemned, but is it time to think the unthinkable and legalise ball tampering? Andrew Hughes investigates.

Shahid Afridi has done many extraordinary things on a cricket field but there is a good chance that when he hangs up his boots, he will be best remembered for what happened at Perth last Sunday. During Australia's tense run chase, the Pakistani captain was pictured biting into the ball. This was not a Mike Tyson moment of frustration, nor the result of inadequate lunchtime refreshment in the pavilion. Afridi was blatantly attempting to raise the seam of the ball.

What was most extraordinary was the fact that in the middle of a cricket stadium, surrounded by thousands of spectators and scrutinised by dozens of cameras, he thought that he could get away with it. But then thought is not something you associate with Afridi. An affable personality and a compelling cricketer, he appears to bat, bowl, field and captain almost entirely on instinct. In 2005 he was banned for deliberately damaging the surface of a pitch and in 2007, he was suspended for thrusting his bat at a spectator. A two match ban for this latest incident could be considered rather lenient.

Interestingly, this bizarre episode comes not long after Stuart Broad and James Anderson were accused of ball tampering during the series in South Africa. The accusation that his bowlers were seeking to alter the condition of the ball had provoked an angry reaction from captain Andrew Strauss. Similar outrage was apparent at the Oval in 2006 when Inzamam ul-Haq led his team in a mass sulk after they were accused of ball tampering.

And yet, though cricketers treat such accusations as outrageous slurs, when they are caught bang to rights, they invariably claim that everybody does it. Afridi, has, after admitting his guilt, claimed that every international team tampers with the ball. He isn't the first to say that. Back in 1994, Mike Atherton was caught rubbing soil on the ball. At first he denied it, but was soon forced to admit it and was heavily fined. A year later, he wrote that players tacitly accept ball tampering as part and parcel of the game.

Ball tampering is an issue that perfectly illustrates the tension between appearance and reality that underlies this most Victorian of sports. On the surface, there is the fiction that everyone abhors such underhand conduct, that it contravenes the spirit of the game. Law 42 of the Rules of Cricket outlaws everything bar wiping the ball with a towel and shining it without the use of artificial substances. But read any cricket book and sooner or later you come up against an example of players tampering with the ball in the most blatant fashion.

Legendary Australian leg spinner Arthur Mailey admitted in his 1958 autobiography, that he kept powdered resin in his pocket and regularly lifted the seam for the quick bowlers during the 1920-21 Ashes series. In the intervening years, Vaseline, bottle tops, soil, Murray Mints and even half a lollipop (Rahul Dravid in 2004) have been employed to alter the condition of the ball. That players like Afridi are still prepared to risk it suggests that it is a deeply rooted part of the game.

In which case, perhaps the time has finally come to legalise ball-tampering. And not just because it would enable cricketers to do openly what they currently do in secret. In a game where flatter pitches, heavier bats and smaller boundaries are making life easier for batsmen, some levelling of the playing field may make for a more balanced and absorbing contest between bat and ball.

Whatever the longer term implications for the game may be, the short term result of Afridi's recklessness is that Pakistan have had to select another captain, Shoaib Malik, to fill in for Friday's Twenty20 game in Melbourne. Here at last is Pakistan's chance to leave this disastrous tour with at least something to be proud of. The reigning World Twenty20 champions, even without Afridi, they will attract some support at their current odds of [3.05] in the match winners market. The hosts, meanwhile, are available at [1.48]