Mainly dry weather forecast

LAHORE: Dry weather with partly cloudy conditions was observed in the city here on Sunday while Met Office predicted similar weather conditions for the next 24 hours.

Met Officials said the continental air prevailed over most pocket and then rubbing a substance on the ball. Atherton denied ball tampering, claiming that he had dirt in his pocket which he used to dry his hands. He was also accused of lying to the match referee.

In 2001, Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar was fined 75 per cent of his match fees after he was found guilty of illegally working with the ball’s seam at Port Elizabeth. India had later threatened to boycott the last match of the series if the match referee did not take back his decision.

Television cameras had picked up images that suggested Tendulkar was involved in scuffing the seam of the cricket ball. While he claimed he was actually just removing the piece of grass stuck in the seam of ball, it seemed he may have tampered with the ball. The incident escalated to include allegations of racism, and led to match referee Mike Denness being barred from entering the venue of the third test match.

The ICC had later cleared Tendulkar of ball tampering charges. Sachin is the only player to have 100 internal centuries, the first batsman to score a double century in a One Day match, the holder of the record for the most number of runs in both ODI and Test cricket, and the only player to complete more than 30,000 runs in internal cricket.

In 2000, Pakistan’s fast bowling pride Waqar Younis became the first bowler in sport’s history to be involved in this offence. He was handed a one-match ban, while his bowling partner Azhar Mehmood was fined 30 per cent of his match fees. They were playing against Sri Lanka.

Waqar is coach of PSL franchise Islamabad United and Azhar has been assisting the Karachi Kings team in the recently-concluded Third edition of PSL.

In 2004, the-then Indian vice-Captain Rahul Dravid was fined 50 per cent of his match fees in an away series against Australia for his involvement in the same cricketing crime.

In August 2006, an alleged ball-tampering issue had eclipsed a Test match between Pakistan and England, whereby Pakistan refused to take to the field for the evening session after being penalized for ball-tampering in the afternoon. Television cameras caught the umpires discussing the condition of the ball.

The controversy arose when the umpires ruled that the Pakistani team had been involved in ball tampering. They awarded five penalty runs to England and a replacement ball was selected by England batsmen on the crease.

Play continued until the tea break, without any Pakistani protest. After the tea break, the Pakistani team, after having mutually confirmed that no ball tampering had taken place and given consideration to the severity of the implication, refused to take the field.

England were resultantly awarded the match.

As a result of Pakistan's forfeiting of the game captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was charged and found guilty of "bringing the game into disrepute", though he was cleared of the charges relating to "changing the condition of the ball.”

In January 2008, Pakistan's cricket board asked the ICC to change the official result to "match abandoned" or "match drawn" on the basis of having been subsequently cleared of ball-tampering by an ICC tribunal.

In July 2008, the International ICC changed the result of the match to a draw, but in 2009, the ICC reversed their earlier decision, and changed the match result back to a win for England following severe criticism by the historic Marylebone Cricket Club and an ICC Cricket Committee Member, Michael Holding.

In 2010, Shahid Afridi was slapped a two-match ban, after he was found chewing the ball in an attempt to readjust the seam of the ball at Perth against Australia. An embarrassed Afridi admitted and apologized. He is currently associated with Karachi Kings.

In 2012, Sri Lanka had alleged Aussie fast bowler Peter Siddle of altering the condition of the ball, fondly called a ‘red cherry’ by many commentators. Siddle was later cleared by the ICC.

n 2013, while fielding on during the third day of the 2nd Test, in Dubai, cameras captured footage of South Africa fielder Faf du Plessis was caught scuffing the ball against the zip on his trousers. The on-field umpires penalized South Africa by adding 5 runs to Pakistan’s score and changed the ball.

In 2014, South African fast bowler Vernon Philander was found guilty of tampering with the ball during the 3rd day of the Galle test against Sri Lanka. He was fined 75 per cent of his match fee. South Africa had gone on and win the test by 153 runs.

Just a year or so ago, in 2016, South African captain Faf du Plessis was again caught red-handed by television cameras and had to pay his entire match fees as fine.