ABSTRACT
In cricket, in recent years, no issue better captures the idea of good and evil, right and wrong, law and order versus criminality, than the vexed problem of allegations of ‘balltampering’. The idea that the fielding/bowling side deliberately interferes with the ball, most commonly either by lifting the seam or defacing one side, goes to the heart of the ‘contest between bat and ball’. The confrontation between batter and bowler encapsulates ‘cricket’ as contest-the batter trying to score runs, the bowler attempting to capture wickets, the two vital elements in calculating winning and losing. The idea of ‘fair play’, of ‘cricket’ necessarily includes the idea that the confrontation must be one of skill and ‘natural’ talent, of ‘bat against ball’, of willow and leather. Allegations of ball-tampering therefore go to the very heart of what it means to play cricket and conversely what it means to ‘cheat’.
