Roebuck Ponting must abondon diplomacy

[John]

1. He must draw attention to how frequently England players leave the field.
2.He must get the umpires to scrutinise the ball. "If Pakistan were obtaining as much reverse swing there would be uproar."
This is Roebuck's call to arms. I will be interested in other views.

[greg]

Roebuck is a weasel.A treasonous little wretch who for some reason has become a cricketing version of Lord Haw Haw in turning on his own country to spout his ridiculous bile.

As for his comments.Let the umpires inspect the ball and make sure that both sets of players stay on the field then.Why was McGrath allowed to go off when he went into the game with an injury?

[Zainub]

2.He must get the umpires to scrutinise the ball. "If Pakistan were obtaining as much reverse swing there would be uproar."

I'd be lying if I said part of me didn't think about that. And mind you, Roebuck's not the only one, Wasim Akram was analysing England's performance on an ESPNStar Sports show called Mad About Sports day before yesterday and he said "10 years ago when we were doing it, it was ball tampering, now when England are doing it it's reverse swing" (followed by massive ironic grin).

[greg]

The thing is 10 years ago nobody knew about it so it was a logical conclusion to jump to even if it was wrong.On the 1992 tour Aqib Javed was shown on telly gouging the ball with his nails to which the mighty Richie Benaud in commentary said "Steady on".Was that legal?

[Pabs]

Originally Posted by John

"I went to Public school you know where Rugby and Homosexaulity were complusory" Julian Clary

How very apt for this particular thread!

Re ball-tampering: this must be the most scrutinised series of all time in terms of the amount of TV coverage, cameras, close-ups, replays etc. The ball is never out of shot for a second, so I would be amazed if ENG could get away with anything too untoward.

[Zainub]

The Pakistanis new about it, not a lot of people were prepaired to listen though. I was too young in 1992 to have any recollecitons of the specific incident you talk about, I obviously cannot comment on that.

[greg]

I am pretty sure we haven't done anything to the ball but if we did and someone was found to be guilty they should be banned for a year.There is no place in the game for anybody who tampers with the ball.

[greg]

Originally Posted by Zainub

The Pakistanis new about it, not a lot of people were prepaired to listen though. I was too young in 1992 to have any recollecitons of the specific incident you talk about, I obviously cannot comment on that.

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.

[Zainub]

The ball is never out of shot for a second, so I would be amazed if ENG could get away with anything too untoward

I wouldn't be amazed one bit. It's being covered a lot by the media, you're sure right about that, but the majority of that media hails from England, the television coverage I assume is with Channel 4 and Sky. I am not saying any ball tampering has been carried out, I'd be foolish to say that without any evidence, but I would definitely not rule out any actual occurences not being caught on NATIONAL telly. I do though, hope in the better interests of the game, that every thing has taken place fair and square.

[greg]

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 so they would have reported it by now if there was any truth in Roebuck's rantings.