3 ms·

How pervasive does altering the ball have to become before we start to be suspicious if the ball doesn't look altered?

insbrueck 8y ago
Kind of an inane, fear mongering question. Why foment an atmosphere of malignant intent? Paranoia and a suspicious tone of this sort is unnecessary, when it's trivial to reason what should be considered typical and ordinary. What does a brand-new ball look like? What does a worn-in ball look like? Expectations should be somewhere in between. The only reason a the rules of the game don't require a factory fresh, new ball for every turn, is because it would seem and feel wasteful. But in other sports and games, organizers DO go to great lengths to enforce authenticity, and prevent equipment tampering. Casino gambling uses fresh decks of cards, and extra shuffling, to prevent marking and counting, otherwise, the playing field acquires memory, reducing chance, and conferring advantage to attentive players.
bigger_cheese 8y ago
Cricket is a bit different to baseball because polishing the ball is an accepted part of the game. By polishing one side of the ball and allowing the other-side to naturally grow dull you alter the flight characteristics of the ball - it's how you can achieve movement through the air or 'swing'. The ball is rarely replaced - it is very much intended for the condition of the ball to deteriorate over the course of an innings various tactics revolve around when to make bowling changes as some bowlers specialize with the 'new' ball which is shiny and hard and others have a style designed to exploit the older ball which is softer and more dull. There are certain time milestones that elapse in the match where captain can elect to replace a old worn ball with a new shiny ball. The illegal part is ball tampering rubbing some foreign substance against the ball such as dirt or mud to weight it down or scuffing up the ball with something (A player on the Australian team was caught using a strip of sandpaper, which was a big scandal over here recently).
- abraae 8y ago
  At school, where such rules were not enforced, some kids used hair gel on one side of the ball. Most were too unskilled to really exploit it but a good bowler could achieve what felt like a metre of savage sideways swing, enough that a ball that started out looking like a wide would finish up whistling past the ears of the hapless batsman.
- cardiffspaceman 8y ago
  > rubbing some foreign substance against the ball Isn't saliva, with or without Murray Mints, foreign enough?

Kind of an inane, fear mongering question. Why foment an atmosphere of malignant intent? Paranoia and a suspicious tone of this sort is unnecessary, when it's trivial to reason what should be considered typical and ordinary. What does a brand-new ball look like? What does a worn-in ball look like? Expectations should be somewhere in between. The only reason a the rules of the game don't require a factory fresh, new ball for every turn, is because it would seem and feel wasteful. But in other sports and games, organizers DO go to great lengths to enforce authenticity, and prevent equipment tampering. Casino gambling uses fresh decks of cards, and extra shuffling, to prevent marking and counting, otherwise, the playing field acquires memory, reducing chance, and conferring advantage to attentive players.

bigger_cheese 8y ago

Cricket is a bit different to baseball because polishing the ball is an accepted part of the game. By polishing one side of the ball and allowing the other-side to naturally grow dull you alter the flight characteristics of the ball - it's how you can achieve movement through the air or 'swing'. The ball is rarely replaced - it is very much intended for the condition of the ball to deteriorate over the course of an innings various tactics revolve around when to make bowling changes as some bowlers specialize with the 'new' ball which is shiny and hard and others have a style designed to exploit the older ball which is softer and more dull. There are certain time milestones that elapse in the match where captain can elect to replace a old worn ball with a new shiny ball. The illegal part is ball tampering rubbing some foreign substance against the ball such as dirt or mud to weight it down or scuffing up the ball with something (A player on the Australian team was caught using a strip of sandpaper, which was a big scandal over here recently).

abraae 8y ago
At school, where such rules were not enforced, some kids used hair gel on one side of the ball. Most were too unskilled to really exploit it but a good bowler could achieve what felt like a metre of savage sideways swing, enough that a ball that started out looking like a wide would finish up whistling past the ears of the hapless batsman.
cardiffspaceman 8y ago
> rubbing some foreign substance against the ball Isn't saliva, with or without Murray Mints, foreign enough?