ICC should legalise ball tampering: Donald

Posted on Jul 25, 2009 at 10:57 Comment 0 CommentsEmail Print


Durban: Former South Africa speedster Allan Donald feels the International Cricket Council should legalise ball tampering to prevent the growing hegemony of batsmen in world cricket.

"The ICC would shoot me for saying it but, with the wickets that we play on and the dying breed fast bowlers are becoming on these flatter wickets, I would say we do need some sort of defence mechanism, something to fall back on to say 'Right, we can do this. We can now prepare this ball to go'," Donald told 'Cricinfo'.

However, the 42-year-old, currently the coach of Warwickshire where he had served with distinction as a player, is aware his plea would have very little effect.

"That (legalising ball-tampering) quite simply would never happen," he said.

Ball tampering raised quite a storm during Donald's time and the pacer conceded that bowlers did it to get reverse swing.

"There is no doubt guys tampered with the ball," he said of the fast bowlers of his time.

Donald is not the first one to champion the cause of ball tampering. In the mid-1990s, Sir Richard Hadlee too had advocated legalising ball tampering.

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