Friday, September 08, 2006

Ball tempering and name calling in cricket


Why do people resort to name calling especially in international cricket when this is the clean and 'gentle' game?

Fear of losing the game could be one reason while ignorance of the consequences could be another.

In cricket, ball tampering is an action in which a fielder illegally alters the condition of the ball. Umpires are required to monitor the condition of the ball by regular inspections.

Ball tempering controversy resurfaced between England and Pakistan test at Oval when Pakistan forfeited the match in protest, the first forfeiture in test history under extraordinary cicumstances.

The same problem of ball-tampering briefly resurfaced again at The Rose Bowl between these two teams, but it was Sky Sports’ coverage of the incident which came in for criticism in the media this time.

Sky showed Shoaib working on the ball in the 25th over, three balls after he had dismissed Ian Bell.

In a mischievous piece of commentary, Sky failed to draw their own conclusions, leaving it for viewers to email in their thoughts.

Nasser Hussain went even further to say that Shoaib, was very silly and stupid to do it in the current climate.

The umpires had a look at the tapes and cleared Shuaib of any wrong doing.

It seems that some commentators are insensitive about criticising which hurts the opponents and leaves a bitter feeling and that is not good for this beautiful game.

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