Faf du Plessis Feels ICC Must Get Stricter and Clearer With Ball-tampering Rules

Cricketnext Staff | Updated: July 2, 2018, 8:42 AM IST

Faf du Plessis wants the ICC to throw further light on what amounts to tampering.

South Africa are set to tour Sri Lanka for two Tests, five ODIs and a T20I. While it will be a tough challenge for Faf du Plessis’ team on spin-friendly conditions, the hosts too would look to come back strongly after the ball-tampering saga saw their skipper Dinesh Chandimal miss the third Test of the series against the West Indies. Du Plessis believes that the International Cricket Council must get stricter with the charges to stop the menace of ball-tampering.

Having himself been at the receiving end, du Plessis went on to add that there also needs to be clarity on what amounts to tampering as he feels there are too many grey areas when it comes to the issue and the rules of the international body.

"They have to (be stricter). It's happening too often. They definitely need to do that as quickly as possible. I know they met a while ago but it doesn't look like anything has changed. It's still the same rules and stuff, so they need to change that. The penalties needs to be harsher for ball tampering.

"I have probably said it too much but there are too many grey areas when it comes to the ICC and the rules. One, you want clarity and, two, you want consistency and that's definitely something that's not been part of that body of laws for a while now," he said.

"There's a lot of captains that have been speaking about it for a lot of years so, hopefully, when they do bring in all these new things there will be a lot of clarity and, most importantly, consistency for all teams."

Chandimal is likely to get a reprieve from Sri Lanka's cricket administrators after they said that further sanctions are unlikely as the Sri Lankan skipper did not intentionally tamper the ball. Sports minister Faiszer Mustapha, who is currently supervising the functioning of Sri Lanka cricket, said that ICC's sanctions were sufficient but he was 'disturbed' by the team's decision to delay play against West Indies in the St.Lucia Test.