The Ethics of Ball Tempering: A Critical Analysis in Cricket

This essay delves into the controversial topic of ball tampering in cricket, exploring its historical context, mechanisms, and ethical implications. It discusses how ball tampering, which involves illegally altering the ball's surface to gain an unfair advantage, is viewed as a punishable offense under the Laws of Cricket. The essay analyzes the aerodynamics behind ball swing and how tampering affects it, referencing various instances of players caught engaging in this practice. While acknowledging some debate over the strictness of regulations, the paper emphasizes the importance of ethical gameplay and suggests that the International Cricket Council (ICC) should conduct further research and implement stricter regulations to eliminate ball tampering at all levels of the sport.

Running head: BALL TEMPERING
Is Ball Tampering A Part of The Game In Cricket?
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Author Note:

1BALL TEMPERING
Ball tempering is a well known term throughout the history of the cricket. The term
‘Ball Tempering' refers some actions through which fielders or bolar illegally alters the outer
surface of the ball to change its aerodynamic shape to gain an extra advantage to weaken the
batsman in an unauthorised way during the delivery of the ball. This paper will discuss the
history and mechanism of ball tampering. The paper will also discuss how the ball altering is
a part of the game and how the tempering is considered as an illegal and punishable activity.
This paper will opine about the authenticity of this approach and how the International
Cricket Council can handle these issues. The purpose of this paper is to analyse if the ball
tempering is part of the game or not.
Understanding the mechanical explanation behind the linear motion of the ball and its
potential devotion is very important in order to identify the practical causes of this situation.
At the time of the delivery, while the ball is released from the hand of the bolar the motion of
the ball depends on the surface of the external layer, rotational velocity, linear velocity and
the angular position of the stitches or seam with the axis of the rotating ball. The friction
between the air and the outer layer of the ball can cause small to large deviation of the linear
velocity of the ball (Mehta 2014). The impact of angular velocity and the fiction with the air
on the linear momentum of the ball get higher within a particular bandwidth of the delivery
speed of the ball. This aerodynamics phenomenon is used to ‘Swing’ the ball and to create
“Magnus” effect in a specific ‘Spin ball’ technique.
To make the ball ‘swing’ through the air bolar uses the angular velocity and the
rotation of the ball by throwing it with lots of efforts and specialised techniques. Mostly, for
swing balling style these techniques are used in three different ways namely conventional
swing, reverse swing and combinational swing (Moran 2016). Through various techniques,
the external layer of this ball can be changed. Changing the surface of only one side of the
seam or stitches of the ball can cause imbalance air turbulence during the rotational motion of

2BALL TEMPERING
the ball. This condition of biased air and ball fiction can cause additional deviation of the
linear motion which also known as ‘Extra Swing’ makes the batsman confused about the
motion of the ball without implementing effort on the delivery technique (Ghiya 2015).
Ball tempering can be done by using fingernails, rubbing the ball on an uneven
surface and using the blade or sharp tools. The sports cricket faces numerous ball tempering
cases throughout the history. In 1994 Mike Atherton was accused of rubbing dart on the
surface of the ball by hand (Mukherjee 2012). He was fined 3.700 EUR and avoided
suspension for intentionally tempering the ball during the test match. In 2000 a Pakistani
player Waqar Younis was suspended and fined. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, two
Indian players are also caught for ball tampering during the match in the year 2001 and 2005
respectively. In 2010 James Anderson and Stuart Broad were also accused of tempering the
ball by rubbing the ball on the ground by boots. Shahid Afridi, Vernon Philander and many
other players from different countries have been found guilty of ball tempering (Chatterjee
2015). Recently Cameron Bancroft was accused of the same during the test match on 24
March 2018.
Under Law 41, subsection 3 of the Laws of Cricket the ball can be polished without
using any artificial substance. According to this act, any artificial effort such as polishing the
ball with lip balm, hair gel, lotion, toffees and making rough by using fingernail, shoe spikes,
uneven material and bled are considered as a punishable offence and breach of the Low of
cricket (Flintoff 2018). However, the law allows the use of wet clothes for rubbing the ball.
The umpires are responsible for monitoring the physical condition of the ball by inspecting
the ball several times during the game. It is clear that tempering ball is not an authorised or
ethical way to play the game and the ICC and other national and international regulatory
boards are highly concerned about any misconduct related to the ball tempering.

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However, some of the critics said that the regulations and boundaries on the activities
regarding the physical condition of the ball are not very prominent and understandable. As
per their opinion, the rules and regulation regarding the ball tempering need further
amendment (Phillips et al. 2014). Although there are some perceptual conflicts concerning
the limitation of the use of artificial substances and its impact on the surface of the ball, every
responsible person does not voice for this unethical and illegal practice of altering the surface
of ball tampering. ICC and other national and international regulatory boards can conduct
different research and derive the causes of surface alteration to further level in order to make
more effective and interpretable regulation against ball tempering (Holden 2017). They can
also investigate the previous cases to have a closer look at the whole issue from both ethical
and practical perspectives. They can also enforce additional regulations for the ground level
coaching organisations to eliminate the practice of ball tempering from the grassroots level.
From the above discussion, it can be said that tempering ball is not an authorised or
ethical way to play the game. Additionally, illegally alterations the outer surface of the ball
changes its aerodynamic shape offering an extra advantage to the bolar by illegally
weakening the batsman during the delivery of the ball. However, there are some perceptual
conflicts concerning the limitation of the use of artificial substances and its impact on the
surface of the ball. At the same time, no responsible person voices for this unethical and
illegal practice of altering the surface of ball tampering. ICC and other national and
international regulatory boards can conduct different researches regulation against ball
tempering to eliminate the practice of ball tempering from the grassroots level.

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References
Chatterjee, A., 2015. Cricket Cauldron: The Turbulent Politics of Sport in Pakistan.
Flintoff, A., 2018. Australia ball-tampering: 'Nonsense' only three players knew - Andrew
Flintoff. [online] BBC Sport. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/43706190
[Accessed 23 Apr. 2018].
Ghiya, V., 2015. Aerodynamics of Cricket Ball Swing.
Holden, R., 2017. The awkward squad: rebels in English cricket.
Mehta, R.D., 2014, December. Fluid mechanics of cricket ball swing. In 19th Australasian
Fluid Mechanics Conference.
Moran, S., 2016. Ideals of Sportsmanship Throughout History. Sportsmanship:
Multidisciplinary Perspectives, p.118.
Mukherjee, S., 2012. Identifying the greatest team and captain—A complex network
approach to cricket matches. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 391(23),
pp.6066-6076.
Phillips, E., Davids, K., Renshaw, I. and Portus, M., 2014. Acquisition of expertise in cricket
fast bowling: perceptions of expert players and coaches. Journal of science and medicine in
sport, 17(1), pp.85-90.