Good start.
Next comes the punitive financial losses.
And so, the next time some mintie chewing, coke swilling, grass seed picking, Nosekote applying yobbo thinks he’ll be immune from sanction if they take a shortcut through the rule book they might recall the fate of two of the top ICC 5 batsman in the world who tried similar bullshit.
Homeworkgate began Arthur’s fall, but the final nail was Warner punching Root and Australia’s dire performance in the Champion’s trophy.
Did this article ever nail this issue - whoa!
As an American, I’ve read this thread with interest even though I don’t what most of you are talking about half the time. The fascination comes with the amount of actual disgust and outrage this incident has caused. It sounds as though doctoring the ball a little bit is OK, but using foreign objects is beyond the pale. We’ve had similar incidents in baseball:
Joe Niekro caught with emery board (youtube video)
The big difference was the reaction. The fans weren’t really outraged, and I don’t think Niekro felt any shame at all.
So they punished him by making him go on Letterman?
“Doctoring the ball” is absolutely not ok. The difference is that unlike baseball, the same ball is used for lengthy periods (about 80 “overs”, or 480 pitches). Which means that unlike Baseball, the condition of the ball as it changs, directly affects the play.
The only thing players are permitted to do (legally) are
-
Shine the ball, basically meaning you can rub on your trouser leg to try and maintain the shine/smoothness
-
You are permitted to use, sweat, spit or dew tp help maintain said shine, nothing else.
Since as the ball deteriorates, its behaviour changes, teams try and take advantage of it by managing the deterioration, often called “ball preparation”. Like for example, shining only one side, so there is a notale difference.
Somebody get **Stranger on a Train **in here, maybe he can explain what NASA scientist (and cricket fan) in the above article is trying to say.
I thought I’d read enough about this but then I read the article **up the junction **linked to above and chortled a few times, as well as agreeing with much of it.
Anyway, Lehmann is gone now too. Smith and Lehmann reduced to tears in their respective press conferences. Best line I have seen on Lehmann’s “I didn’t know what was going on” defence is that the recent Ashes series was contested between two teams coached by guys who didn’t know what was going on.
Why is that? Is there a specific reason to use the same ball for that long?
One of the links in this thread mentioned that whacking the ball on hard ground or rubbing sweat on one side was fairly common. That’s all I meant by “doctoring,” but come to think of it, is there a cricket equivalent to a spitball?
Spitballs are illegal in baseball right? If so, you’re looking at the equivalent here - illegally changing the condition of the ball.
Why do we use the ball for 80 overs at a time? Because we always have, I suppose, is the answer - it’s part of the game, adjusting to the condition of the ball, for both batsmen and bowlers. It’s also cheaper than replacing the ball every 6 deliveries- you don’t need hundreds of balls a season at the amateur level, so you can keep overheads down in a sport that requires pretty expensive equipment otherwise.
Some good examples of reverse swing here - remember this is over 22 yards at almost 90mph, and it’s a veeeeeery hard ball:
Yeah, but Tickner has gone off half sucked.
Yes the initial findings are that, the ICC issued demerit points and docked their match fees. Which I presume Tickner considers a fair cop and play on son.
But the coach’s position was untenable and he’s gone.
And the investigation is ongoing and there will be more.
The underlying premise is Tickner would be really quite chuffed if the England team were to win through a bit of chicanery because shithey, we all do it. He put the boots into them from the cheap seat when they were rolled by NZ for 58 recently. There wasn’t the merest peep for him when England staged a remarkable effort to get within a handful of overs of saving the game.
All hale the moral vacuum of the Twitteracracy.
I think there can be some confidence that this particular ball tampering incident was a once off. Because it was so ineptly done, with so little effect and so little advantage gained. Patently they couldn’t have been practiced at this. As Tickner would acquiesce there are plenty of Poms and Pakistanis and Saffers they could ask for expert advice on the matter. As AK84 points out, the most reliable way to get a ball to swing either conventionally or reverse is totally legal.
The Australian cricket team have been obnoxious bores for decades. For me it passed the tipping point about the end of Taylors tenure. To make the Test side you need to be technically sound, mentally tough and have a penchant for dishing it out. A recent and specific example: Peter Neville was clearly the best glovesman in the country. He was dropped in favour of Matthew Wade who is barely First Class standard with the gloves, a substantially inferior as a batsman outside the slog and giggle of T20 and arsehole of the first water for the singular reason that he was quote “more aggressive” i.e. he sledged and abused the opposing batsmen incessantly. The Australia selectors think that is more important for a keeper than their technical merits.
Yes, a populist view here might have been that we could forgive the odd unsavory moment and indiscretion as they were the best in the world.
From a grass roots level, under this visage is a deeper disquiet that they were best in the world because they incessantly sledged and abused. And based on their too commonly poor track record away from the shelters and comforts of home ONLY******** because they incessantly sledged and abused
Finally they sledge and abuse on and off the field and premeditatedly cheat when they are having a bad day and so it doesn’t matter whether they are the best in the world or not. We don’t think that’s cricket.
Wow, for a batsman, all you could hope was that you were standing at the bowlers end.
But on a point of order, when India’s Irfan Pathan takes a hat trick in the first over of the 2006 Test v Pakistan in Karachi, that’s not reverse swing. 