Du Plessis insists that he did nothing wrong
Image courtesy of: Zimbio
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has expressed their disappointment towards the fact that South Africa stand-in captain Faf du Plessis has opted to launch an appeal after they found him guilty of ball-tampering.
The ICC fined Du Plessis 100 per cent of his match fee from the second Test against Australia in Hobart after footage surfaced of him licking his fingers with a mint in his mouth and subsequently proceeding to rub and shine the ball.
Du Plessis, though, insists that he has done nothing wrong and is determined to clear his name, much to the dismay of ICC CEO David Richardson.
Cricket South Africa have said that law 42.3 of the Laws of Cricket, which says that players are allowed to “polish the ball provided that no artificial substance is used”, is unclear as it doesn’t specify what constitutes as an “artificial substance”.
Speaking about the issue, Richardson said: “These state that a player should not use artificial substances to shine the ball. The ICC understands that to include, but is not limited to, sunscreen, lip ice and residue from sweets.”
He added that the ICC “does not wish to prevent players from using these substances for legitimate purposes. However, any deliberate attempt to apply such substances to the ball, as was the case here, will not be acceptable.”
While Richardson admits that there is a possibility that the law could be changed, he made it clear that until then, it will continue to be enforced.
“This will continue to be reported and the ICC confirms that unless the Laws are changed, the current practice of charging players when the evidence shows an obvious breach will continue. ICC Umpires will remind all teams of the Laws as they stand,” he said. “I think he (Lorgat) jumped the gun in saying it’s on the agenda. But I think that in light of this incident and of other comments being made by players around the world, I think it’s fair to say it should be discussed by the cricket committee going forward.”
Richardson also pointed out that he has been less than impressed with South Africa’s reaction to the ball-tampering incident, particularly when veteran batsman Hashim Amla called the ICC’s decision to charge Du Plessis a “joke”.
“I think it’s fair to say I’m disappointed that they don’t respect that the laws are there”
Image courtesy of: Zimbio
“I think it’s fair to say I’m disappointed that they don’t respect that the laws are there. They are there and the process is not necessarily respected. I was disappointed in the initial sort of comment that this is a joke – that kind of comment,” he said. “But full marks to them, subsequent to that they’ve acknowledged we attend the hearing, go through the process and follow it. So perhaps that initial reaction I thought was uncalled for but subsequently it’s within their rights.”
Du Plessis recently said that he felt as if he had been made a “scapegoat” by the ICC, but Richardson insisted that anyone caught using artificial substances to change the condition of the ball will be punished for their actions.
“This has always been an issue that’s been quite difficult to police,” he said. “Even before we spoke about using mints and sweets, lip ice – and we’ve been using lip ice and sunscreen on our faces for years – we understand that inadvertently in shining the ball there’s a potential for it to get onto the ball.
“And for that reason we’re not going to go around wildly accusing players of cheating and using the lip ice, sunscreen or sweets. We’ve taken the approach that we will only really charge someone if it’s obviously being done for that particular purpose.
“There’s two examples in the past. One was Rahul Dravid where he actually took the sweet and rubbed it on the ball, you probably couldn’t get more obvious than that. And in our opinion this instance. So if anyone does something similar we will hopefully get to see it, treat it in exactly the same way we’ve treated Faf in this case. These decisions are not taken lightly because it was just so obvious under the current laws that we thought we had to report him.”
Responding to Australia captain Steven Smith’s comments that his side “along with every other, shine the ball the same way”, Richardson said: “I’m not sure he exactly went that far as to say the same way he was talking about shining the ball.”
When questioned about Lorgat’s remarks that he used to use the same tactic to shine the ball during his playing days with South Africa, the 57-year-old responded by saying: “I thought that comment was probably inappropriate but I can speak for myself and I can confirm I never – probably because I was the wicketkeeper and had no real need to shine the ball in any way, but I can confirm I never used – and I used lip-ice and sunscreen religiously for 30 years – and never put it on the ball.”