brycy will no doubt go on again about ball tampering but consiider this article by Haze on superpsot
Last time I checked you can't be half pregnant. You also can't be caught half ball-tampering.
The punishment handed down by match referee David Boon is confusing. All of the officials involved in the second test reported Faf du Plessis to the match referee for ball-tampering after the third day’s play in Dubai. He subsequently pleaded guilty to the charge of changing the condition of the ball and was handed a lenient fine.
This is where it all gets muddled. Following footage that went to air and was noticed by the television umpire, Paul Reiffel, the standing umpires immediately seized the ball, changed it and awarded five penalty runs to Pakistan.
That act alone screams guilty. If the umpires deemed the damage inflicted on the ball to be severe enough to act immediately and confiscate it as evidence, then surely the case is already half closed and the expected sentence severe.
No, wrong. We heard no more about the ball, let alone laid eyes on it, so none were the wiser regarding the damage, and Boon merely slapped Faf on the wrist. As has been pointed out, Harbhajan Singh was previously fined 15% of his match fee for wearing coloured shoe laces! Robbie Petersen and Adnan Akmal got the same fine as Faf for pushing and generally faffing around in the first test.
In a nutshell, although the zipper footage shown certainly looked incriminating, the team of umpires it seems overreacted.
If the act of ball-tampering happened, as it appears it did, surely the evidential damage to the ball would have backed up the claims. Clearly this was not the case and Faf played on.
The worrying aspect to me is that because of the poor handling of such a sensitive issue this time, some nefarious characters in the future might risk acting similarly, as a precedent of negligible punishment has now been set.
The umpires confiscated the ball. Evidence was presumed severe. Faf pleaded guilty. He did not contest the fine. No hearing took place. David Boon said there was no prolonged or deliberate effort to manipulate the condition of the ball.
I don't get it. Faf either did or didn't.
Well well well! Something very fishy here. Obvioulsy there was in the end no real evidence of the condition of the ball being altered by Fafs action. Why no real sanction for this serious offence?
