Opinion
November 8, 2026 — 5:30am
Firstly, a mea culpa. I was a bowler, I tried to swing the new ball, and when playing at the SCG or pre-drop-in pitch at the MCG, I definitely tried swinging the old ball.
When the spinners had finished their turn, the ball needed some extra spit, sweat and polish for the quicks to be effective.
The grassless, abrasive Bulli soil was ideal for natural scuffing, no external actors were required.
My left-handed partner-in-shine-crime Michael Whitney was pretty good at getting the ball moving away from right-handers; my natural reversing action was away from left-handers.
Do not ask why. Theoretical physics cannot explain the mystery of “reverse” swing.
The conversion from linear to curved space brings batting challenges.
I do not know of a single bowler worth their salt who hasn’t licked, flicked, scratched, slobbered on or lifted the surface or seam of a cricket ball to get a little extra out of it.
Originally termed “Irish” swing, the politically correct anti-cricket types objected to the phrase, so a neutral term emerged.
So here is a swing bowling guide for dummies.
“Reverse” because when the ball is new it will move away from the shiniest side; when it’s old and the rub-a-dub-dub has been applied, then the ball will move towards the shiniest, smoothest side – that is, a reverse set-up.
The long and short of the game says if the ball moves sideways, as opposed to gun-barrel straight, then skilful bowlers are more likely to get batsmen out, which is their collective raison d’etre and exciting for the fans.
Certain actions on the ball are allowed; legal; encouraged, in fact. Shining a cricket ball is as natural as exhaling after a deep breath.
As kids we were proud of the red stain on our whites that mother’s laundry never quite erased.
Batsmen have forever been coddled by the survival halo of “benefit of the doubt”, a spurious and undocumented notion that did not and does not exist in the laws of cricket.
Bowlers need something, anything, and a touch of ball alteration is trivial.
I first became aware of effective ball retouching in Pakistan in the early 1980s, although there was also perhaps Sarfraz Nawaz at the MCG in the middle of a 7-1 spell in 1979 – 3-305 became all out 310.
He had the old ball mysteriously swinging around corners. The pitches were bland and uninspiring for any bowler.
The Pakistan pacers would get the haggard leather swinging after 20 or 30 overs, and it was revealed at the end of the series that bottle caps had been used to scar one side of the ball while vigorous shining of the obverse complemented the treatment.
The Australian cricket team did not deem this behaviour as cheating. There was no outrage, no finger-wagging at opponents or demands on umpires to intervene.
The ICC, the various cricket boards and the media couldn’t care less, and prime ministers kept their opinions to themselves.
Australian cricket teams that lose Tests get criticised. Sometimes the team gets changed. Pakistan were damned good at swinging it and we needed to catch up in the arms (and hands) race.
Which brings us to 2018 in Newlands and the Australians trying desperately to keep up with South Africa.
Test matches are not the Melbourne Cup, carrying a handicap is not a part of the contest.
Newlands 2018 was just another data point on the ball-fiddling timeline, rather than a catastrophic conclusion that led to David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft being banned for their roles in the sandpaper ball-tampering scandal. Bancroft was suspended for nine months, while Warner and Smith copped 12 months. Warner got a life ban from captaining Australia, while Smith couldn’t skipper for two years.
In an interview with this masthead about his upcoming memoir, Usman Khawaja said the entire team were aware of the plot in 2018.
The list of cases of players caught tampering with the ball since 1990 extends to a number of national captains and world-class bowlers, including the man who captained South Africa during the abrasive 2018 Test.
Former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has subsequently said he thought the punishment for Smith, Warner and Bancroft was out of proportion to the crime and he did not understand the reaction of the authorities or the public. He has a point.
The ICC penalty for such abuses was previously five penalty runs and a changing of the ball.
The manner in which Australia were playing at the time was supported by the rest of the team.
The hypocrisy that followed was startling but maybe not unexpected.
After 2018, the ICC severely increased the penalty for altering the condition of the ball.
Smith was originally suspended for one match as the captain by the ICC and lost his match fee for “conduct contrary to the spirit of cricket”.
The ICC didn’t touch Warner, and the scapegoat Bancroft was slapped with a small fine by the international governing body.
The new sanctions for ball-tampering are six Tests or 12 One Day Internationals on the sidelines. The punitive message delivered by knee-jerk reaction.
The ball at Newlands did not swing, reverse or otherwise, and was not shown to be scratched, licked, flicked, pricked, chewed, zipped, spat on, roughed or bitten.
Meanwhile, back in the batsman’s hut, the ICC penalties for cheating with a non-compliant cricket bat (that is, oversize in length, width or depth) are serious … you have to change your bat. That’s it.
The ICC obviously thinks bowling shenanigans are the much greater of the evils; you can push the envelope on batting dimensions with no real downside.
Does this disparity go back to the days of the wealthy gentleman who batted and the working-class players who did most of the bowling?
There has been no rational explanation as to why scratching a ball is punishable by transportation for life, yet using an illegal bat doesn’t warrant a slap on the wrist.
The Australian team were vilified for being ineffectual cheats. The ball at Newlands did not swing, reverse or otherwise, and was not shown to be scratched, licked, flicked, pricked, chewed, zipped, spat on, roughed or bitten.
The whole team has a duty to look after the ball – it is the bowling team’s principal resource.
When the ball is new, you keep it off the ground to maintain the effective shine. If you want to rough it, then the fielders’ throws come in short, and bounce. Every player knows their job.
There’s even a skill to throwing the ball so it lands rough-side down. The team assigning scapegoats, rather than taking the collective rap, was un-Australian. The CA internal investigation was laughable but, then again, having a national crisis over the condition of a cricket ball deserves a few laughs.
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Source: The Age · Geoff Lawson
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