The two Sunday newspapers in New Zealand were victims of a court injunction by the cricket authorities to prevent further sensational stories of the goings-on of the national team recently in South Africa, but the Sunday Star Times gave Hadlee a fourcolumn space in which to promote what he calls ``subtle'' balltampering.

``It is time to legalise ball-tampering in cricket,'' said Hadlee in the first paragraph of his weekly column. ``I can already hear the gasps from the game's conservatives, but I am deadly serious.''

Hadlee commented that ball-tampering had caused a ``raging debate'' in recent years, and said that the law banned the use of artificial tamperers such as bottle tops, knives, scissors and sun-screen creams.

``But there have been subtle ways over the years of mucking about with the ball that allows it to do things like reverse swing after 40 or 50 overs and takes the batsman by surprise.

``As long as the bowlers or fielders use whatever means they have on their persons, I don't see anything wrong with it. I'm talking about the use of a finger nail to scratch the ball, not bottle tops or those sort of things.''

This, said Hadlee, would do away with the need to monitor the problem. The bowlers would have to work out the best way to use the ball, the batsmen would have to concentrate more, the spectators would have more interest, spin-bowlers would be encouraged, and there would be more results, particularly in Test matches.

Thanks: Electronic Telegraph

Contributed by Rohan (azhar@cs.Stanford.EDU)