"Tampering the Ball"

[Assara K]

"Tampering the ball"- did anyone read a book where Imran admitted he had tampered the ball with a bottle lid?- And around that time he admitted that, Pakistan had to have the ball regularly inspected by the umpires!!!

Wasnt it down to Allan Lamb, and the England series in 1992????? |-K

[Daoud]

THe thing was Imran wasnt the only bowler at the time to have tampered with the ball. The poms seem to forget a certain Peter Lever who used vasaline on the ball and got it to swing around heaps in India, helping them win a Test. You didnt see headlines in the Sun saying CHEATS did you?
Richard Hadlee also admitted to tampering with a ball

[Assara K]

Yeah i do remember he was caught on tele wasnt he?

[Amir_rulez]

Imran has habit of throwing "not very intelligent" comments once in a while when he is in the commentry box.

1)Mentioned above is one of them.
In his autobiography, Wasim wonders y Imran did that , keeping in mind that they were on a tough tour to England. Imran's such comment brought him & Waqar under severe pressure & had a negative effect on their performance.
2)In Sharjah (1994-5 probably)
Imran: "Saeed Anwar cant bat. He is just a pinch hitter"
Imran, when captain, wud send Anwar as a pinch hitter. Anwar wud repeatedly say: "Im a proper batsman. Give me a chance. Let me play my natural game". Anyways, it was after Imran's retirement when Anwar took his career to the peak.
3) WC 1996: (match against India)
Miandad, no doubt was too old by that time & wasnt in form. Yet he scored gutsy 38. Here Imran in commentry box: " Miandad is finished..miandad cant play anymore...that was a horrible shot..miandad this...miandad that"
Dude, guy is there in the ground, trying his best. Has been sent down the order. Y expressing ur personal enmity on mic?

Wonderful Player, Wonderful captain, but once has got something in his mind, will get hell bent to prove it .

[Rob H]

Dravid is the biggest ball tamperer

[sajjad]

ball tampering is sucha contentious issue. its really hard to say what it is and how it shud be defined.

isnt applying ur saliva to get a shine on the ball, tampering with it. perhaps not cause the shape isnt changing...but nevertheless...countless ppl have used different measures to get something extra from the ball.

[MecnunK]

saliva is allowed, foreign substances like vaseline, oil,bottle tops, sand, chewing gum are not.. Imran admitted to lifting the seam which under the laws is not allowed but he argued that it should be since everyone does it anyway.. Waqar has been caught on camera , I think he was even banned for a match and I have seen Aqib and shoaib do it as well on camera, Atherton and Dravid have been caught too.

The bottle top incident Imran refers to happened ina county match and he claims he did it out of boredom.

[Jahangir Khan]

Atherton and Dravid have been caught in the past for ball tampering but it seems to be the Pakistani's who come under the most scrutiny for ball tampering. The English media always contrbuted the reverse swinging ball to ball tampering but they were not very vocal when Wasim and Waqar were playing for their county sides and reverse swinging the ball. Waqar was especially lethal with his yorkers.

They never implied that the ball had been tampered with by the english counties and were just jealous that they could not do it in the earlier days.

In Spin magazine, I read an article about county sides using extra strong mints and hard boiled sweets to alter their saliva before applying it to the ball. None of these have ever been questioned on what they have been doing to the ball yet when a Pakistani bowler scratches a bit of grass off the seam of the ball, they blow up the pictures and devote big articles to them.

[Schiller]

I personally think tampering to a degree should be allowed.

[Gasherbrum]

some people actually like tampering with balls.

[Gasherbrum]

and the subsequent movement that generates ...

[Schiller]

:oD

in case that wasnt what I think it was, then no laughter

[Rob H]

Kyle Mills tampers with the ball. He has a special thing on his trousers for shining the ball.

[MecnunK]

if you allow it then where do you stop..on the other hand people have always done it and will always do it..tough nut to crack... I was once *cough* warned by an umpire when he noticed me*cough*lifting*cough*the*seam*... I WAS bored and the game was going nowhere I tells you..

It was quite funny though..The umpire goes ..what you doing to that ball, I replied I am trying to get reverse swing...He replied, well do'nt do it anymore or I will report you..me: Yessir..

[Schiller]

:oD :oD

you dont stop it i say, unless there are damned brutish cuts the size of ravine, you let it be.
iv eonly tampered tape balls and was once neraly beaten by the opposition umpire for doing so, he thought at the time that cheating was in my blood (he said tht as well) and he attempted to spill as much of it as possible. thankfully, what i lack in physique, i make up in sprint.

[MecnunK]

that's the spirit.. ;) .. I played with tapeball once or twice in my brief soujourn to Pakistan..I hate playing with anything but a proper ball or a concrete ball. When I was really young in Pakistan..like 8/9 we still played with a hard ball..

[Schiller]

must be the british influence, i played tape ball nearly all my life, on a few occassions that i did play wit hthe hard ball, it was a damned experience, difficult to bowl leg cutters with it

[Gasherbrum]

tape balls start moving around like crazy once the tape starts splitting up. its a great art to control them once it starts happening.

i once had a run in with an umpire who was on some sort of anti ball-tampering crusade. the guy would jump on me everytime i started shining the ball. but the funny thing was, he said you can't use saliva/spit but didn't have a problem with me using sweat. what a guy! irritated the crap out of me.