Roebuck Ponting must abondon diplomacy

[Zainub]

Originally Posted by greg

It was bad and with the murmurings of possible ball tampering,that just put petrol on the flames,it took a long while for people in England to accept that reverse swing was not caused by ball tampering.

The version of the story I get to listen from Wasim quite regularly now-a-days is that people in England thought it wasn't ball tampering when he was bowling for Lancashire and taking tons of wickets against other county teams, but it suddenly was ball tampering when Wasim Akram was bowling for Pakistan and taking wickets against England, amongst other teams.

Zainub you are forgetting that the British press would take great delight in uncovering this story if it was true.They like to build them up and knock em down

Are you sure about that? For the first time in nearly 2 decades England have a realistic chance of regaining the Ashes (and that's your trademark line from Lawrence Booth)...and you think that some press that has build up this England team so much will now go against them and report about their misdoings (if they ever did any) ....I for once don't think the English press are that fair. If you do, then that's to your credit. It's good to have faith. I for the record rate England as a fairly honest bunch of cricketers and would like to believe they have done and will hopefully do no wrong. At the same time though, I do believe that IF they did, the press (the home press) would have kept quite about it. But that's just my opinion.

[greg]

Without television replays a lot of the time you wouldn't know what had happened in a county game.The mass coverage in International cricket and replays showing the ball going completely the wrong way to what it should was bound to highlight it more.It's the same with anything though what you don't know about or fully understand you are sceptical of,it's the way the human mind works.

[Pabs]

Originally Posted by Zainub

Are you sure about that? For the first time in nearly 2 decades England have a realistic chance of regaining the Ashes (and that's your trademark line from Lawrence Booth)...and you think that some press that has build up this England team so much will now go against them and report about their misdoings (if they ever did any) ....I for once don't think the English press are that fair. If you do, then that's to your credit. It's good to have faith. I for the record rate England as a fairly honest bunch of cricketers and would like to believe they have done and will hopefully do no wrong. At the same time though, I do believe that IF they did, the press (the home press) would have kept quite about it. But that's just my opinion.

Well Simon Jones has already lost his girlfriend during this series thanks to tabloid muckraking about his private life. Similar murmurings about KP I gather, and I don't doubt the redtops would kill for some dirt on Vaughan and Flintoff.

Re Sky: isn't Murdoch an Aussie? Besides, there are loads of non-ENG commentators/analysts on the UK media. Can you imagine Michael Slater keeping schtum if he spotted a bit of ball-tampering?

[Zainub]

Fair enough. May be I was just being too skeptical.

[greg]

To get back to Roebuck i'd love to be a fly on the wall in the press area at Trent Bridge next week seeing as he is disliked by nearly everybody who reports on English cricket.His reception might be slightly frosty.

[Andy Mellon]

Originally Posted by Zainub

Are you sure about that?

Wasn't it English TV that highlighted Athers' dirt-on-the-ball tactics? If so, I doubt they'd blink at reporting an English cricketer for ball tampering.

[Paoli]

As for one Peter Roebuck; probably time to stay in commentating. He's an awesome commentator; he just writes trash. I agree about the Pakistan comment post-W's, not saying that they would do it, just that there'd be uproar, but as many have said; the ball is on the camera every second of the day.

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Andy Mellon

Wasn't it English TV that highlighted Athers' dirt-on-the-ball tactics? If so, I doubt they'd blink at reporting an English cricketer for ball tampering.

Yes it was Andy, and Athers had the dirt in his pocket, must
be legions of undercommentators, with their eyes just trained on the ball.

The English media is the worst in the world, , for dirt digging.

[lindas legs]

Zainub was it not the Britsh media who outed Atherton when he was supposedly tampering with the ball,I think you will find that was the case .Also since it came to light that the Pakistani players were all angels and would never tamper with the ball is it not so that the umpires check the ball on a regular basis for any such problems.While on the subject of umpires can you remind me why we have neutral umpires when the old system of home based umpies was working so well in the sub continent.

[Andy Mellon]

There's a good article in the Wisden Cricketer this month on the very issue of Pakistan's reverse swing in 1992. It speaks to some of the protagenists in the game. Derek Pringle says that he was very interested in the ball, because he wanted to know how the Pakistanis did it. Robin Smith says that a lot of the hoo-haa at the time - and he's being honest here - it a bit of jealousy and puzzlement about how they managed to do it and with hindsight, all of the England players they speak to look back on the Pakistani's bowling performance in that series with appreciation of the skill.

Maybe the British media haven't made this transition yet.