I'd be inclined to come down heavily on this as well. I think I saw that Surrey were penalised five runs overnight for ball tampering, with the umpires unable to find out who had done it. The comment from Surrey's skipper was that "the umpires had got it about right". I was not surprised to hear him say that, but I don't agree at all. Lifting the seam, which is what had happened (twice!), is about as blatant as you can get, and five penalty runs really is nothing - let's remember that it is as severe a penalty as a fielding team gets for accidentally allowing the ball to strike the helmet. The umpires, if they can't see who has done the tampering, should ask the skipper, and if he doesn't come clean they should require him to take off both the bowlers who are presently at work for the remainder of the innings. They have weapons at their disposal, and they ought to use them. Five penalty runs is a joke.

__________________
Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan