Faf du Plessis has an ironic stance on ball-tampering

Even though he’s been sanctioned twice for the offence himself, Proteas captain Faf du Plessis supports the drive towards harsher penalties for ball tampering.

The issue has already become a dominant theme in the build-up to South Africa’s series against Sri Lanka, which commences this weekend after the Islanders’ skipper, Dinesh Chandimal, became embroiled in a tampering saga in the West Indies.

“The ICC have to (take action). It’s happening too often. They definitely need to do that as quickly as possible,”  said Du Plessis.

“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.”

It’s an interesting stance for a man with a sketchy history in this regard.

Du Plessis was fined 50% of his match fee in 2013 when he used his zipper against Pakistan to rough up the ball and then sacrificed 100% in 2016 in what became the infamous “Mintgate” saga, where he was punished for using his saliva from sucking a mint to shine the ball.

2016’s incident – Du Plessis appealed but lost – has made the 34-year-old somewhat of a crusader, particularly in terms of clarity on what constitutes ball-tampering.

“I’ve 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 are 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.”

Du Plessis seemed unaware that the ICC is, in fact, in the process of approving stricter penalties for ball-tampering.