From doping to ball tampering, the ICC needs to use common sense when dealing with cricket’s sins

“I know my job is not easy. I have to bat, bowl and field, run from long-on to long-off. But I am always in the game”, said Andre Russell in an interview after the World Twenty20 in 2016 that established him, if ever there was a doubt, as the hottest Twenty20 all-rounder in the world. Here is a cricketer who has “pulling off impossible feats of athleticism” as part of his daily job description.

As an example of his superhuman ability, sample the catch he took in the Ram Slam in 2015. Note that I would have normally said that he ran backwards at full tilt like “Kapil Dev circa 1983 on steroids” but in the light of some latest developments, such a statement would carry a sinister undertone.

The case of the missing all-rounder

Russell failed to file his whereabouts thrice in 2015, an offence tantamount to missing a dope test. An A-lister in multiple T20 leagues, his suspension will cause major headaches for several teams the world over. At the same time, there could not have been a timelier reminder for cricketers and cricket boards to fall in line with the World Anti-Doping Agency’s code of conduct.

Cricket was always believed to be a low-risk sport for doping violations. Batting for eight hours or bowling 25 overs in a day were not “high performance” disciplines of sport where one would risk using drugs for gaining an unfair advantage. Twenty20, the game’s newest format, though, thrives on players who combine power with athleticism, players like Russell who can hit the ground running as soon as they enter the playing arena and can muscle through 40 overs of batting, bowling and fielding. Combine this with the huge monetary incentives on performing well in T20 leagues, and it is no longer safe to ignore the threat of substance abuse in cricket.

The International Cricket Council has been WADA compliant since 2006, but T20 leagues have transferred the onus of keeping the game drug free from ICC to the local boards. The whereabouts clause that got Russell into trouble has historically been disputed by Indian players as a breach of their privacy.

In a press statement, the Board of Control for Cricket in India recently clarified that while it’s international players fall under ICC’s National Players Pool and must comply with the whereabouts clause, the domestic players do not have to do the same, although they also go through random dope testing including out-of-competition testing.

The BCCI and other cricket boards can follow the example of professional leagues in other sports to bring all participating teams and players under similar code of conduct. For example, European football leagues do not discriminate between superstars and journeymen athletes, imposing the whereabouts clause on all affiliated clubs and players uniformly. Similar vigilance from cricket boards will go a long way in saving cricket from a Lance Armstrong moment.

The not-so gentlemanly game

Cricket was once considered a gentleman’s game, which meant it expected to function in a utopia where men of honour took responsibility of keeping the game clean. That myth has been discarded for a while now but the game still has not learnt to set laws that are clear, sensible and enforceable. Also, the game’s governing body has not learnt to empower and stand behind its umpires and officials in all situations either.

From Daryll Hair to the Shamshuddin episode, umpires have been routinely bullied and sidelined by teams in a game where ironically, showing dissent on the field can lead to players getting suspended, but ridiculing a well-intentioned umpire in front of world press after the game can deprive him of his livelihood.

The way rules are formulated and the game is governed needs a reform. We need to start from an overhaul of the underlying philosophy that ridicules and demonises bowlers acting within the laws of the game with something like “Mankading”, while bowlers getting an unfair advantage by bending their elbows beyond fifteen degrees limit were ignored, even celebrated for the better part of a decade. The ICC needs to step up and empower its umpires to report violations of rules instead of appeasing certain boards. If disputes arise, cricket’s governing body needs to fully support its umpires instead of catering to petty gains by siding with local cricket boards.

The menace of sweetened saliva

While bowling action rules suffered from poor enforcement, there are things like ball tampering that are not specified with enough clarity in the rule books. This has led to a situation where any instance of a player getting reported for ball tampering, like the recent incident involving Faf du Plessis, leads to a meltdown between players, boards, lawyers and media.

As per the current law, players can polish the ball as long as they are not using artificial substances. You can use saliva, but it should not be sweetened with a candy or a lip balm. You can wipe sweat from your forehead but it should not contain Vaseline or Brylcream.

Until you are going to monitor what a player is applying on his face in his dressing room and do a chemical analysis of his saliva right before he enters the field, you are never going to catch such offenders. Ex-players like Imran Khan have admitted to using unfair means to alter the condition of the ball and current players are aware that all teams are doing it to varying extents. In such an environment, a player who unfortunately gets caught on camera with a candy in his mouth tends to feel aggrieved at being made a scapegoat.

Baseball had similar issues with pitchers altering the condition of the ball using saliva or petroleum jelly but it was vigilant to set clear laws to stop the practice. Spitball, as they call it in baseball was banned a century ago barring pitchers from applying saliva on the ball in a clear ruling without any fine print describing the quality of saliva that is deemed legal or illegal.

In cricket, bowlers rely a bit more on swing generated by shining one side of the ball so a complete ban may not be the smartest option. The ICC can either pass a clearly defined law on polishing the ball that allows players to apply saliva without discriminating between the brand of candies they want to chew. Alternatively, we can completely ban the use of players putting saliva on the ball and allow a designated player in the team carry some kind of ICC approved ball shiner in his pocket. As an added bonus, parents will be delighted if their kids stop emulating the players and quit polishing every surface with saliva.

All we need is a bit of common sense administration to give the game a few timely immunisation and booster shots to ensure its health as it grows into a multi-billion dollar business the world over.