The Indian fans, in particular Virender Sehwag, pointed out on social media that the England bowlers were indulging in ball tampering at Lord’s but they missed the entire point.
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During the fourth day of the Lord’s Test between England and India, an image was shared by Virender Sehwag of an England player stepping on the ball with their spiked boots. The photo was captioned, ‘ball tampering’. Those two words, combined with the effort to be funny and sarcastic, led to an explosion of accusations on social media. The Indian fans were convinced that England had tampered with the ball. The British public, in particular, Michael Vaughan and Stuart Broad went on the all-out defensive. The offense and defense from both sets of fans and pundits was a sad sight.
Remember, there was only one image shared on social media by one prominent personality. Now, the problem with social media is that an image does not give the foreground and the background of the incident. If the entire video would have been shared, then perhaps a foreground and a background of whether it was genuine would have established
In the entire episode, there is one major difference. The Sandpapergate scandal, which saw Steve Smith, Cameron Bancroft and David Warner implicated in Cape Town three years ago, had the full footage. It did show that Bancroft did tamper with the ball using yellow sandpaper. But, at Lord’s, no one had shared the entire footage.
Crucially, the match referee did not see any need to change the ball, and neither did the umpires. India’s batting coach, Vikram Rathour, also did not see anything deliberate. If the full video would have been shared of the incident, then the genuine nature of the incident could have been captured.
The knee-jerk reactions of the fans on social media once again show the irresponsibility that exists on social media. The Indian fans, always the judge, jury, and executioner, are quick to jump to conclusions. If the match referee, the umpires have no problem, then they will state a nature of bias.
Stuart Broad, in explaining the entire incident, stated, “Mark Wood tried to nutmeg Rory Burns by tapping the ball through his legs (a very common occurrence). He missed and kicked the ball there by accident.” What is nutmeg? To play the ball through the legs of an opponent and collect it on the other side. This is the definition of the term in sports.
Since there was nothing deliberate about it, the debate should end there, right? But, now the question of intent is being brought about. England wanted to change the ball and get some wickets. That is the current discourse on social media. Priorities will change, but it does not hide the fact that the medium is fickle.
India and the fans should be the last persons to talk about ball-tampering. In the 2001 Port Elizabeth Test, Sachin Tendulkar was ‘caught’ ball-tampering. But, the discourse at that time was that he was just cleaning the ball. The storm of opposition, since Tendulkar was ‘targeted’, ensured that there would be a double speak on ball-tampering every single time.
England also have not helped themselves by always claiming that ball-tampering is illegal. When Pakistan exploited this art of reverse swing, they termed it as ball-tampering. When England used mint solutions to tamper with the ball in the Ashes in 2005, their actions did not get much scrutiny. Afterall, Australia, the greater evil had lost the Ashes.
At the end of the day, the Indian cricket fan and all analysts have shot themselves in the foot by sharing just an image and then basing their opinion. Images can be faked, tampered with easily. Videos also can fall into the fake category but in the case of cricket, you get what you see. If only someone had shared the entire footage, then concrete opinions can be formed.
But, relying entirely on social media for opinion is a massive problem. Social media, in any ways, cannot be legitimate because it opens itself to fickleness. When the foreground and background are eliminated, it results in massive confusion. The advice for all fans – Get the full footage, base your opinions on that and then make the decision. Just using one image on social media does not merit any form of justification. It is a storm in a tea-cup, made all the more fickle by the dangerous nature of social media.
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