As old as the hills - Interesting article on ball tampering in Pakistan

[Tillu]

 

The thorny subject of ball tampering has stalked the game for many years, but it is only in the last couple of decades that it has become something a wider audience has been aware of. Arguably, it has been going on since cricket's earliest days, but invasive TV coverage and the media's appetite for controversy has brought it to the surface.

 

 

One of the most bizarre - and blatant - instances of ball tampering occurred during New Zealand's tour of Pakistan in the autumn of 1990. From the off, New Zealand expressed deep reservations about the way that the Pakistan bowlers got the ball to reverse swing, and the appearance of the ball. Most dismissed this as sour grapes as the tour had been in trouble before it started. Several leading New Zealanders opted out of making the trip, leading to Imran Khan also absenting himself after protesting at what he believed would be a "mismatch". And then when the Pakistan Cricket Board suggested appointing neutral umpires, Martin Crowe, New Zealand's captain, said that it had to be "better than having two Pakistani umpires". Unsurprisingly, the PCB did an about-turn and dropped the plan.

 

 

In the opening Test at Karachi, New Zealand were twice bowled out for under 200 as Pakistan, thanks to 203 from Shoaib Mohammad, won by an innings.

 

 

In the second Test at Lahore, Martin Crowe remembered that he encountered reverse-swing for the first time on his way to a second-innings hundred. "Six supposed outswingers [from Wasim Akram] suddenly became six lethal inswingers. I had never seen it before and I became curious." During the innings, Crowe dropped a delivery from Abdul Qadir at his feet and bent down to pick it up and lob it back to the bowler. "It was totally mutilated on one side with two or three deep scratches gouged out," he said. "I complained to the umpires but they did nothing."

 

 

Later in the day the ball went out of shape and was changed. As it was thrown to the boundary by the umpires, Willie Watson and Mark Priest rushed to intercept it. "It bore no resemblance to a cricket ball," Crowe claimed. The pair took it back to the changing-room but, so Crowe noted, Intikhab Alam, the Pakistan manager, came in and took it and it was never seen again.

 

 

Ian Taylor, the New Zealand manager, made an official complaint at the end of the match, but it was dismissed with the officials stating that the condition of the ball resulted from a rough outfield and advertising hoardings. "We accepted that Pakistan were the better team," Crowe added, "but we were not going to accept what they were doing with the ball."

 

 

Chris Pringle, at the time New Zealand's opening bowler, decided to take the law into his own hands. "There was something going on," he recalled in his autobiography Save The Last Ball For Me. "And whether what I did was the right or wrong way to make the ball look as it did in the next Test, I had to try it."

 

 

After another resounding defeat at Lahore, several of the New Zealanders experimented in the nets with scoring one side of an old ball with bottle tops. "With that technique, even guys like Mark Greatbatch and Martin Crowe were swinging the ball miles in the air," Pringle wrote. "We practised long and hard in the nets and were quite excited about the results we were getting with it." Crowe admitted that he ran in to bowl his normal inswingers "only to see the ball curve the other way ... I'd never bowled outswingers in my life!"

 

 

On the morning of the first day of the final Test at Faisalabad, Pringle decided to put what he had learned into practice. He found an old bottle top, cut it into quarters, covered the serrated edge with tape, leaving a sharp point exposed. At the first drinks interval the umpires did not ask to look at the ball and, with Pakistan making sedate progress, Pringle started scratching the ball with the bottle top. Pakistan crashed from 35 for 0 to 102 all out. Pringle finished with his Test-best figures of 7 for 52.

 

 

"Neither umpire showed any concern or took any notice in what we were doing even though, at the end of the innings, the ball was very scratched," Pringle noted. "One side was shiny but there were lots of grooves and lines and deep gouges on the other side. It was so obvious. It was ripped to shreds ... one side of the ball had been demolished. The umpires were walking across to each other and talking quite a lot. I sensed that they could tell what was going on ... but they didn't want to get involved in anything controversial."

 

 

However, while the men in white remained implacable, others were wise to what was happening. Pringle recalled that as he left the stadium after taking his seven wickets on the first day, a local dignitary tapped him on the shoulder and said: "Pringle, it is fair now. Both teams are cheating."

 

 

Although the umpires did not check the ball during each session, they did have it during intervals and at the close. And as the game wore on, Pringle became deliberately obvious in an attempt to get a reaction, even gouging the ball as he talked to the umpire. Still nothing was said.

 

 

So eagerly was he vandalizing the ball that at one stage he cut himself on the jagged bottle top. Even the sight of a bowler with blood freely flowing from a sliced finger did not cause any disquiet as far as the officials were concerned. Pringle finished with 11 for 152 after taking 2 for 190 in the first two matches, but his efforts could not prevent New Zealand sliding to another defeat and a series whitewash.

 

 

To their credit, the Pakistan side refused to be riled by the accusations. Wasim explained that: "Waqar and myself were in good nick and were too good for their batsmen, and the dry conditions were perfect for swing bowling. We felt we could bowl out any team. We had no need to tamper with the ball."

 

 

And what about the bottle tops? "It's bullshit," Wasim countered. "It was simply that the New Zealanders couldn't play the moving ball. On Pakistan wickets the ball gets rough automatically on the mud and the sand."

 

 

Taylor, however, added fuel to the flames when he said: "I am not sure how they did it ... whether they used fingernails or sandpaper ... I would not be surprised if they used knives." When West Indies arrived shortly after for a tour of their own, Lance Gibbs, their manager, found a letter from Taylor awaiting him in which he warned them to be on the lookout for ball tampering.

 

 

An uneasy peace was maintained until the second Test at Faisalabad when Desmond Haynes, the West Indies captain, accused the Pakistan bowlers of tampering. At the same time, back in New Zealand, Warren Lees, the New Zealand coach, went public with his claims that official complaints had been made to umpires and the Pakistan Cricket Board but that no action had been taken.

 

 

Nothing was proved against any of the Pakistan side, but sadly it set a precedent for accusations to be thrown at their bowlers right through to today.

 

 

 

Pringle got away with his actions as the Code of Conduct and match referees were still some time away, and he only admitted what he had done when he retired. Could he ever get away with it now? "I wouldn't say it's impossible," he said. "You could still do it but you'd have to get the ball in a bad state anyway so there is no way of proving anything ... and be very aware of the TV cameras. You'd need to be pretty shrewd about it."

 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/as-old-as-the-hills-259676

Edited Tuesday at 03:29 PM by Tillu

[AuxiliA]

If you give the current Pakistani team flat pitches and tampered balls then even Babar Azam would turn into Miandad and Naseem Shah into Waqar Younis. 

 

 

[Gollum]

So blatant, so shameless. No wonder they were unbeatable at home in those days. 

[RizBarKhan]

When Anglos get beat then they come out with accusations of cheating or sorcery, saw this recently at the Olympics after China won medals in the men’s swim events. Anyways, Pakistani legends like the two Ws and Imran khan and Sarfaraz have proven their talent by taking wickets all over the world, let’s focus more on the current cheaters who doctored pitches until it led to their own demise in the World Cup final.

[singhvivek141]

26 minutes ago, RizBarKhan said:

When Anglos get beat then they come out with accusations of cheating or sorcery, saw this recently at the Olympics after China won medals in the men’s swim events. Anyways, Pakistani legends like the two Ws and Imran khan and Sarfaraz have proven their talent by taking wickets all over the world, let’s focus more on the current cheaters who doctored pitches until it led to their own demise in the World Cup final.

So you don't have anything to say against a team which lose the match against part time cricketers in a T20 World Cup ?
Typical Pakistan, always looking for excuses and complaining that other "plotted" their demise. 
No wonder you guys are losing everything, simply won't accept the shortcomings and will always give big hollow talks. 

Edited Tuesday at 05:47 PM by singhvivek141

[RizBarKhan]

10 minutes ago, singhvivek141 said:

So you don't have anything to say against a team which lose the match against part time cricketers in a T20 World Cup ?
Typical Pakistan, always looking for excuses and complaining that other "plotted" their demise. 
No wonder you guys are losing everything, simply won't accept the shortcomings and will always give big hollow talks. 

What do I have to say about a match that happened 3 months ago  you guys have ADHD + room temp IQ (Source: Dr. Richard Lynn) cause your conversation really make no sense and don’t really flow logically, jumping from one subject to another lmaoo.

[singhvivek141]

2 minutes ago, RizBarKhan said:

What do I have to say about a match that happened 3 months ago  you guys have ADHD + room temp IQ (Source: Dr. Richard Lynn) cause your conversation really make no sense and don’t really flow logically, jumping from one subject to another lmaoo.

Aha, I am suprised that you know about ADHD as well ? Probably one amongst 0.000001% Pakistani. 

Well, the conversation logic will start to make sense, when instead of poking fingers on a non-existent theory of doctored pitches, you understand and accept the well known theory of ball-tempering by your "so called legends". No wonder why your fast bowling has gone to **** now and trundlers like Shaheen, Nasim and Rauf are being smashed to pieces across the world. 

[Ultimate_Game]

It's pretty well known that there were two main inflection points which had a profound impact on Pak's performances and results...

 

1. Introduction of neutral umpires: Neutral umps came on to the scene in early 90s and as a result Pak's home record nose-dived. They had the same set of core players who went from never losing at home to losing to Zim and SL at home. Check out their stats from early to mid 90s and compare it with late 90s and early 2000s and you would be shocked.

 

2. Ball tampering curtailed at intl level: This is probably due to 1. As neutral umpires and match refs became more common with more TV cameras due to cricket becoming globalized & commercialized in early 2000s, Pak could no longer tamper the ball the way they used to. The article quoted by the OP is one example. When Imran himself admitted to tampering openly in his book, it says it all.

 

These two changes have been a death knell of Pak cricket. I mean if India used to win solely due to home umpires, how come they still continued to win at the same, and even better rate, even with neutral umpires? Shows the pathetic level of home umpiring and tampering/cheating which was part of the system. There's a reason why no pacer from Pak has taken 200 wkts in Tests since the two Ws.

 

[putrevus]

I see people piling on Pakistani records of past.

 

What ball tampering going on in 2005 in India when so called FAB four with Sachin could not win a test series in India  that too against guys like  of Sami and Kaneria.

 

What tampering was going on in Eden gardens  when Pakistan won after being 6/26.

 

What tampering was going on 2005 Odi series when Indian team led by so called great captain Dada Saurav Ganguly was massacred by Pakistani  great bowlers Naveed  and Sami . That Indian team had Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni, Ganguly. 

 

Trundler Naveed and Sami put a kybash on great captain Dada and his team.But our Dada keeps talking as if he has won multiple world cups under his captaincy.

 

They masscared Indian team in odi series winning 4-2 in 2005
 

There was no ball tampering going on there. 

 

Did Imran , Ws and others did ball tampering , 100 % they did but they sure were good bowlers.

 

Pakistani bowlers till last five years even though not possesing great records were able to take 20 wickets. They drew 2-2 with England under Misbah in 2016 with no name bowlers .

 

 

Even with Indian best batting line up  and Kumble who is India's greatest match winner in words of Gambhir they were always vulnerable against Pakistani teams both home and away. 

 

 

Maybe not playing at home for a decade is now bearing the results who knows what is going on there.

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 06:16 PM by putrevus

[Ultimate_Game]

15 minutes ago, putrevus said:

I see people piling on Pakistani records of past.

 

What ball tampering going on in 2005 in India when so called FAB four with Sachin could not win a test series in India  that too against guys like  of Sami and Kaneria.

 

What tampering was going on in Eden gardens  when Pakistan won after being 6/26.

 

What tampering was going on 2005 Odi series when Indian team led by so called great captain Dada Saurav Ganguly was massacred by Pakistani  great bowlers Naveed  and Sami . That Indian team had Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni, Ganguly. 

 

Trundler Naveed and Sami put a kybash on great captain Dada and his team.But our Dada keeps talking as if he has won multiple world cups under his captaincy.

 

They masscared Indian team in odi series winning 4-2 in 2005
 

There was no ball tampering going on there. 

 

Did Imran , Ws and others did ball tampering , 100 % they did but they sure were good bowlers.

 

Pakistani bowlers till last five years even though not possesing great records were able to take 20 wickets. They drew 2-2 with England under Misbah in 2016 with no name bowlers .

 

 

Even with Indian best batting line up  and Kumble who is India's greatest match winner in words of Gambhir they were always vulnerable against Pakistani teams both home and away. 

 

 

Maybe not playing at home for a decade is now bearing the results who knows what is going on there.

 

 

 

I think you're missing the point. People are not saying Pak was good ONLY due to ball tampering and home umpires. What they're saying is that those factors were a big reason for their success in 80s & 90s. Somebody like Wasim and even Imran would be successful without tampering. Not so sure about Waqar, Aquib Javed and others.

 

There's a reason Pak lost to even SL and Zim at home with the same stars as soon as neutral umpires became a thing and ball tampering was curbed. Were they a good team with those players? Probably yes. Were they world beaters and untouchable at home without home umps & ball tampering? No.

 

In nutshell, Pak relied on home umps and ball tampering lot more than other teams and that's why they were the ones who were impacted the most.

Edited Tuesday at 06:28 PM by Ultimate_Game

[singhvivek141]

25 minutes ago, putrevus said:

I see people piling on Pakistani records of past.

 

What ball tampering going on in 2005 in India when so called FAB four with Sachin could not win a test series in India  that too against guys like  of Sami and Kaneria.

 

What tampering was going on in Eden gardens  when Pakistan won after being 6/26.

 

What tampering was going on 2005 Odi series when Indian team led by so called great captain Dada Saurav Ganguly was massacred by Pakistani  great bowlers Naveed  and Sami . That Indian team had Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni, Ganguly. 

 

Trundler Naveed and Sami put a kybash on great captain Dada and his team.But our Dada keeps talking as if he has won multiple world cups under his captaincy.

 

They masscared Indian team in odi series winning 4-2 in 2005
 

There was no ball tampering going on there. 

 

Did Imran , Ws and others did ball tampering , 100 % they did but they sure were good bowlers.

 

Pakistani bowlers till last five years even though not possesing great records were able to take 20 wickets. They drew 2-2 with England under Misbah in 2016 with no name bowlers .

 

 

Even with Indian best batting line up  and Kumble who is India's greatest match winner in words of Gambhir they were always vulnerable against Pakistani teams both home and away. 

 

 

Maybe not playing at home for a decade is now bearing the results who knows what is going on there.

 

 

I get your point.

 

But the thing here is that post the "chucking era" ....India has upper hand vs Pakistan in most of the games.

Sure, we lost 4-2 in 2005 & couldn't win series which ended 1-1.

But we beat them at home in 2004 2-1 in Tests and them 3-2 in ODI's.

In 2006, we lost Test series in Pakistan But won 4-1 with an attack of RP, Irfan & Sreesanth. 

 

Things weren't heavily one sided then in post tempering era, the tempering was pretty much prevalent in early 80's to early 90's. No way Waqar can swing the ball miles vs Tendulkar on his debut test.

Edited Tuesday at 06:38 PM by singhvivek141

[rangeelaraja]

10 hours ago, RizBarKhan said:

What do I have to say about a match that happened 3 months ago  you guys have ADHD + room temp IQ (Source: Dr. Richard Lynn) cause your conversation really make no sense and don’t really flow logically, jumping from one subject to another lmaoo.

 

 

Keep showing your deep jealousy and even deeper inferiority complex.

 

Edited Wednesday at 04:03 AM by rangeelaraja

[putrevus]

35 minutes ago, singhvivek141 said:

I get your point.

 

But the thing here is that post the "chucking era" ....India has upper hand vs Pakistan in most of the games.

Sure, we lost 4-2 in 2005 & couldn't win series which ended 1-1.

But we beat them at home in 2004 2-1 in Tests and them 3-2 in ODI's.

In 2006, we lost Test series in Pakistan But won 4-1 with an attack of RP, Irfan & Sreesanth. 

 

Things weren't heavily one sided then in post tempering era, the tempering was pretty much prevalent in early 80's to early 90's. No way Waqar can swing the ball miles vs Tendulkar on his debut test.

Even with  ball tampering India , Pakistan test series was never one sided other than 1982-83 series. That is the only series India got hammered due to ball tampering was in 1982-83 series plus umpires where they lost 3-0.

 

India beat them handily in 1978 series 2-0.Kapil was the force behind that series win.

 

India , Pakistan test series was never one sided other than those two series.

 

Waqar made his debut in that 1989 series along with Sachin.He sure had pace then.But India did not lose that series.Neutral Umpires helped a lot in that series.

 

Post 2000 after the exit of Wasim and Waqar, India should have dominated them atleast at home but they simply were not good enough.

 

That is why I never rate Fab four or Kumble.

 

Pakistan should be thanking their lucky stars that they did not face India with Jadeja, Ashwin,Shami and Bumrah.Last 10 years is only time I can say India would dominated them both home and away in all formats.

Edited Tuesday at 07:13 PM by putrevus

[Tillu]

[Ultimate_Game]

44 minutes ago, Tillu said:

 

That proves my point about ball tampering and neutral umpires. You don't fall off a cliff going from a win-loss margin of 6:1 to 1:1 instantaneously with the same set of players. Something must've happened and that was advent of neutral umpires and more scrutiny on ball tampering. And the team which relied most on t was the one which struggled the most with those changes.

[rollingstoned]

8 hours ago, RizBarKhan said:

What do I have to say about a match that happened 3 months ago  you guys have ADHD + room temp IQ (Source: Dr. Richard Lynn) cause your conversation really make no sense and don’t really flow logically, jumping from one subject to another lmaoo.

Some authority that, appealing to him only because he says what you want to believe is a better barometer of your iq being genuinely room temperature, perhaps even in centigrade. 

Edited Wednesday at 02:17 AM by rollingstoned

[Haarkarjeetgaye]

Us area mein to woh bachpan se tampering karte hain

[RizBarKhan]

50 minutes ago, rollingstoned said:

Some authority that, appealing to him only because he says what you want to believe is a better barometer of your iq being genuinely room temperature, perhaps even in centigrade. 

 

[Need4Speed]

10 hours ago, RizBarKhan said:

When Anglos get beat then they come out with accusations of cheating or sorcery, saw this recently at the Olympics after China won medals in the men’s swim events. Anyways, Pakistani legends like the two Ws and Imran khan and Sarfaraz have proven their talent by taking wickets all over the world, let’s focus more on the current cheaters who doctored pitches until it led to their own demise in the World Cup final.

you are wrong..Shami's chip in the ball malfunctioned that day

[rollingstoned]

30 minutes ago, RizBarKhan said:

 

Yea well thanks once again for reinforcing my point.