It's official - England cheated in 2005
It turns out Matt Hayden was wrong - we didn't lose the 2005 Ashes because of divine intervention. No, we were defeated by breath mints. Specifically, breath mints illegally applied to the surface of the ball to induce reverse swing. And no, this accusation doesn't come from Nathan Bracken with sour grapes. This comes from the fresh breathed confession of "the man in charge of looking after the ball", Marcos Trescothick.
"I was firmly established as the man in charge of looking after the ball when we were fielding. It was my job to keep the shine on the new ball for as long as possible with a bit of spit and a lot of polish. And through trial and error I finally settled on type of spit for the task at hand.
It had been common knowledge in county cricket for some time that certain sweets produced saliva which, when applied to the ball for cleaning purposes, enabled it to keep its shine for longer and therefore its swing.''
Should Australians be outraged that England cheated in 2005 to win the Ashes? Personally, I'm not fussed. Australia still should've won the series. When Matt Hayden after 4 Tests of failures finally ate humble pie and changed his batting technique, he scored a century and England barely staved off defeat due to poor light. England with illegally tampered cricket balls were still no match for Australia playing at their best. One can only assume the lollies didn't get past customs in 2006 when we defeated them 5-nil in a damp squib of a Test series. I say bring on the breath mints in 2009.
| Posted by JC on Tue 26 Aug |  6 comments |
This is necessary to make the game more competitive and transparent.
Posted by thecricketingleague.blogspot.c on 2008-08-26 21:40:44
I suspected foul play with mints way back and it's no suprise that the depression-affected Trescothick wants to come clean as part of his therapy after losing his place to cheating realated stress induced by mints.
This Pommie cheating brings our game into disrepute and I will not let this latest episode wither away (like Bob Woolmer's murder) and become part of the overlooked indescretions of the ICC.
Trescothick has admitted that the whole team cheated by tampering with the ball and the ICC seem to be doing nothing about it!
So if I go into a Police station confessing to a murder, are the cops just going to let me off? I think not - so, I say again: STRIKE ALL THE RESULTS FOR THIS ASHES SERIES FROM THE RECORDS and ban the Poms from being allowed to play us for 10yrs.
I want asterisks against every Pommie bowlers name in Wisden to serve as a reminder that they deliberately TAMPERED WITH THE BALL.
Makes one wonder what they did during the Olympics, eh?
Posted by virtualgaz on 2008-08-27 21:30:26
Posted by JC on 2008-08-28 07:27:41
What about her Majesty doling out medals to all and sundry and now it turns out THEY ALL CHEATED! Are the Poms giving the medals back or what?
Does Pieterson condone this type of behaviour? The new Pommie Captain is surely one of the guilty. That silly incident when he illegally swapped batting positions is proof enough of his intent to cheat.
I'm taking my Pommie cricket team hating to new level from now on.
Posted by virtualgaz on 2008-08-28 16:26:55
Secondly whether they have great effect really is negotiable according to experts. They may have had minimal or no impact on the ball swinging.
To virtualgaz - KP did not illegaly switch batting positions, he LEGALLY swapped batting positions, he did not cheat. Your cricket knowledge actually seems a little limited and warped if you didn't know that.
Posted by Tom on 2008-08-30 22:11:53
Unfortunately for the Poms, my cricketing knowledge (limited as it is) is pointing out the bleeding obvious.
Just to clarify an aspect of the gentleman's game which you must be deliberately overlooking (considering your superior knowledge of the game): changing your advertised bowling delivery (without the blessing of the umpire) or batting stance (contrary to the pre-match teamlist) is clearly not within the spirit of the game. I won't go into the fine detail as your knowledge is far superior to mine.
Appointing the likes of the selfish and universally despised South African Peiterson as a Pommy captain is evidence enough of their intention of continuing to tamper with ball. Therefore all previous International results (AGAINST ANYONE) between 2001 and today should be either struck from the records or asterisk-marked because of known cheating.
It took a while but 2005 all makes sense now...
Posted by virtualgaz on 2008-08-31 16:12:24
Its well known fact that County cricket is the place where all these experiments to tweak the ball to get swing reverse swing has originated. The Legendary Pakistani Fast bowler Imran Khan had publicly acknowledged it. Second instance was 2003-04 series of India ,when Steve bucknor and Rahul Dravid had infamous "mint row". A point to be noted is Rahul had spent some time in English county prior to that tour.
What hurts me is when English acted purists and prudes, Every time Pakistani bowlers had measure of their batters, using their "own medicine"
Posted by unsuidojo on 2008-09-01 23:26:30
Post New Comment
You need to be logged in to post a comment. If you're new, register here. Existing users, login via the right margin.
