All you need to know about ball tampering

The five-six days were rather agonizing for all the cricket fans as the cricket world was hit by a ball-tampering scandal with the Australian cricket team hogging the spotlight.

During the day three of the third Test between Australia and South Africa in Cape Town, Australian batsman Cameron Bancroft was caught tampering the ball. After the end of day's play, he and his skipper, Steve Smith confessed that they were trying to alter the condition of the ball in a bid to get reverse swing.

Smith was handed a one-match suspension and fined 100% of his match fee the next day while Bancroft was fined 75% of his match fees. Out of the blue, the Australian government and Cricket Australia interfered in the issue and the cricket board slapped a one-year ban on Smith and his deputy Warner and a nine-month ban on Bancroft for their involvement in the Sandpaper Gate saga.

The question here is, what is ball tampering and why is it against the spirit of cricket?

What is ball tampering? Why is it against the spirit of cricket?

Before coming to this, let us take a look at what reverse swing is.

The bowlers use conventional swing to trouble the batsmen early on in an innings. The conventional swinging deliveries, the inswinger and the outswinger, are usually delivered when the ball is new. The ball swings in the opposite direction of the shiny side of the ball.

As the ball becomes older, it becomes tough for the bowlers to extract the conventional swing. In a bid to contain the batsmen, they then try to extract reverse swing.

What is reverse swing?

When the ball becomes older by the 40th over, it begins to swing towards the shine, which is the exact opposite direction of the conventional swing, better known as reverse swing. When the bowler extracts reverse swing, a natural outswinger will become an inswinger and vice versa.

This happens because one side of the ball, the shiny side, will be slightly heavier than the rough side and the extensive turbulence around the rough side will force the ball travel against its natural swing path.

Unlike the conventional swing, where the swing follows the trajectory of the ball, reverse swing occurs late in the trajectory. Due to the late swing, the batsmen will have less time to adjust themselves to the swing and because of this, reverse swing tends to confuse the batsmen more than the former.

Here, the ball swings in the same direction as the shiny side of the ball. As the ball becomes older, it tends to become rough and the teams around the world make sure they have someone in the field to take care of the ball, ie. maintaining the shine on one side.

The thin line between preparing and tampering

"Yes, it’s an art but then stealing is also an art. Would you put a thief in jail or praise him. Reverse swing is an art but ball tampering is dishonesty. And there are ways to prepare a ball for reverse swing without tampering," said former Indian pacer Ashish Nehra.

Generally, all 11 members of the fielding side take care of the ball so that their pacers can generate reverse swing later on in the innings. Though the full 11 is involved in preparing the ball, one fielder in the side, predominantly the one who fields at mid-off or mid-on, is given the responsibility of making sure that the ball is maintained in a way that it starts reversing as soon as possible.

The teams polish the shiny side of the ball, which is done in a majority of cases and in rare cases, they work on roughening up the other side more, something the Australians tried to do in Cape Town.

The only natural way of preparing the ball for reverse swing is by bouncing it from the deep or bowling cross-seam deliveries and make the ball land on the leather instead of the seam. By doing this, one side of the ball gets rough easily. But, there is no guarantee of the ball being worked on one particular side.

Virat Kohli "preparing" the ball for reverse swing

The only legal way to polish the shiny side of the ball is by using plain saliva or sweat. While doing this, the player should make sure that the other side does not get any moisture at all.

It takes at least 50 overs for the ball to reverse and the teams should be patient for it to start reversing. If they somehow try to force reverse swing, they end up tampering the ball, something that is against the spirit of the sport, but at the same time, it not as big a crime as it is being portrayed of late.

Ball tampering techniques

To get reverse swing, teams indulge in various practices trying to shine one side of the ball or create rough on one side with the help of external objects. Separate objects are used for shining the ball and scuffing the ball.

Shining the ball

Mints: The most commonly used practice for shining the ball is mints or toffees. Often the players can be seen chewing gums while fielding. The long used mints produce a pasty mix with saliva, which is thicker than the normal saliva. The thickness of the saliva makes the shiny side heavier and assists the bowlers in generating huge reverse swing.

Faf du Plessis using mint to shine the ball

In the past, former England opener Marcus Trescothick admitted that he and his teammates used Murray Mints during the 2005 Ashes series, which England won 2-1. A couple of years back, South Africa captain Faf du Plessis was accused of ball tampering as he was caught sucking on mints and trying to shine the ball with his saliva.

Jelly items: This includes vaseline or sun tan lotion or lip balm or hair gel. The fielders rub these items from their bodies and apply on the shiny side of the ball. In 1977, England bowler John Lever was accused of deliberately rubbing Vaseline on the shiny side of the ball during a Test against India in Chennai. The pacer used Vaseline to stop the sweat entering into his eyes. He then rubbed sweat from his brow onto the ball. Indian captain BS Bedi lodged an official complaint to the match officials and vaseline was found on the ball after the cherry was sent to a laboratory for examination.

Scuffing the ball

Sachin Tendulkar working with the ball in 2001

Fingernails: Scratching the ball with fingernails makes the ball rough and this is one method that is commonly used for scuffing. Legendary Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar was trying to work on the ball with his fingers during a Test against South Africa in Port Elizabeth in 2001 and was banned for one match for trying to change the condition of the ball. The decision was later overturned by the ICC.

Trouser zips: Rubbing the ball against the trouser zip makes the ball rough as well. In 2013, Faf du Plessis was caught doing this in a Test match against Pakistan. He pleaded guilty and was fined 50% of his match fees.

Blades: It is very common that players tape their fingers when they take the field and there are chances that they might have small pieces of blades hidden in the protective tapes. When the scratch the ball with their fingers, the blade makes the surface rough. There were several unconfirmed reports that David Warner has been using this technique of late.

Protective tapes on David Warner's fingers

Sandpaper: Scratching the ball with a piece of sandpaper makes the surface of the ball rough - something Cameron Bancroft was doing in the Cape Town Test.

Bottle caps: This is one of the bizarre ways of scuffing the ball. In 1990, New Zealand pacer Chris Pringle cut a bottle cap into quarters, applied tape on it excluding the sharp point. He then hid it in his pocket and tampered the ball during the game. Later, he himself admitted to the offence.

Shoes: Stamping on the ball with the spikes of the shoe makes the ball rougher. Australian pacer Pat Cummins tried this on day 1 of the Cape Town Test but was let off by the ICC as there was no proper evidence of him doing it deliberately.

#SAvAUS Pat Cummins could be in trouble here. Stands on the ball "accidentally on purpose" as @GraemeSmith49 points out pic.twitter.com/FDLa6joXG8

— Michael Sherman (@Golfhackno1) March 22, 2018

Interestingly, former South African spinner Pat Symcox allegedly managed to both rough up and shine the ball by sticking it inside his shirt and rubbing it in his armpit.