It was lunch break during a first-class match abroad, featuring an Indian team, a few summers ago. The flat surface not assisting bowlers, players thought of ‘doing something’ to the ball. They asked the manager to get Alpenliebe. The story ended on a sour note, as the person entrusted chose to do some own shopping as well and returned after tea. The phase of match the team wanted it for was gone.
Surprised? Not perhaps, after stories emerging that cricketers use such sugary pop-ins to thicken saliva, which is rubbed on one side of the ball to make it smoother and heavier. If the other half is rough and the ball old, it dips towards the more lustrous side when hurled at sufficient pace, contrary to conventional swing, wherein the ball tilts in opposite direction of the shine.
They call it reverse swing, but unlike the Pakistani phenomenon of the past, dependent more on a rougher half, the modern version is also about the heaviness of the half that is ‘maintained’.
What might surprise is how universal this practice is and how helpless cricket’s law enforcement agencies are. The India player narrating the Alpenliebe story was more dismayed that the manager didn’t realise the practical importance of his duty. It’s one of the brands preferred for this purpose because they make the secretion thicker. Center Fresh chewing gums are also popular in this respect.
Safe gambit
This has become the trusted method of ‘doing something’ to the ball in dry and rough conditions, after the advent of TV cameras curbed older tricks like making one side abrasive using nails or crown caps. Applying saliva has always been legal and who’s going to monitor what kind of candy you have! Almost everybody is at it and oppositions rarely complain because they are too. Unless TV footage is conclusive, authorities can’t take action (see box).
Rule 42.3 regarding the condition of the match ball in MCC Laws of Cricket says “no artificial substance” should be used to “polish the ball”. With no mechanism to check how and when this particular artificial substance is taken, there is no way to stop this.
“The practice is prevalent because it’s hard to detect. It’s not uncommon to hear that in different countries, different brands of candies are used. More sugary it is, thicker the saliva. Since there’s nothing wrong with applying saliva, how do you make sure what it contains or doesn’t? It’s difficult to stop because you don’t know where to stop. How do you prove what’s applied on the ball is artificial? Maybe we’ve to think of revisiting the rules,” said cricketer-turned-commentator Deep Dasgupta.
In absence of TV cameras, this method to derive reverse swing is commonplace in domestic cricket. Umpires are aware of it, but can’t act unless the ball becomes really abnormal. So, it’s not surprising that compared to a few instances of players penalised for ball tampering in international cricket, there are hardly such examples on domestic fronts. But as players testify, “all teams do it”, and there are specialists better at “maintaining the ball”. There are stories of disputes over when to do it, if a team has one bowler good at the conventional swing and another at reverse.
Umpires helpless
“We check the ball if it suddenly starts moving in the other direction and also between overs. If found unusually wet or with scratch marks, it’s changed. Beyond that, it’s difficult to do anything. You can’t pull up players merely on the basis of suspicion unless there is 100 per cent proof of what they are doing. In international matches with TV cameras, it’s a different game. But in domestic cricket, such practices are impossible to stop. I’ve often sensed the saliva business without being able to intervene,” revealed an international umpire, who didn’t want to go on record, citing his BCCI contract.
The game becoming one-sided in favour of batsmen, especially in the sub-continent, is a reason why bowlers are looking for something different. That way, this kind of swing is a product of necessity, like the doosra, which off-spinners devised to stay in the competition. Reverse swing without making one side heavier being a difficult art, most fast bowlers prefer the new trick.
Non-subscriber to the sugary saliva theory, former India quick Lakshmipathy Balaji said reverse swing is not for all-comers. “I don’t agree saliva plays a significant part. For reverse, the pace has to be above medium. After that, there’s wrist and seam position, skill, the angle of delivery and length. It also depends on conditions. And it happens for a while, not full sessions. Only a handful have the ability.” If this explains why lesser bowlers embrace the easier option, the Italian-Dutch manufacturers of Alpenliebe better start taking interest in cricket!
atreyo@newindianexpress.com