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murray mints
Sweet taste of failure?
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of August, 2 Comments »
Patrick reminds us that the furore surrounding Marcus Trescothick’s, er, revelation about the Murray Mints involved the 2001 Ashes, not 2005 as widely published by the media. And me. England, of course, lost the 2001 contest, “proving that when it comes to cheating, we suck” (nice line, Padders!).
He has more to say:
2 Comments »But bowlers have always tried to give themselves an advantage and generally, unless it has been blatant, umpires have turned a blind eye. Suncream-laden sweat or lip balm has the same effect on leather as mint-infused saliva. Why do you think so many bowlers in the 1950s wore Brylcreem? In 1921, Johnny Douglas, the England captain, threatened to report Arthur Mailey, the Australia leg spinner, for using resin to grip the ball. Mailey countered by pointing out that Douglas’s thumbnail was worn to the bone by picking at the ball’s seam to aid his own bowlers.
Suck it and see
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of August, 3 Comments »
The ICC are being uncomfortably sensible lately. The latest piece of common sense from Dubai surrounds Marcus Trescothick’s “revelation” that he and England used Murray Mints (surely the finest mintage) to help swing the ball during the 2005 Ashes.
“It was my job to keep the shine on the new ball for as long as possible with a bit of spit and a lot of polish,” he said in his autobiography Coming Back To Me. “And through trial and error I finally settled on the type of spit for the task at hand.
“It had been common knowledge in county cricket for some time that certain sweets produced saliva which, when applied to the ball for cleaning purposes, enabled it to keep its shine for longer and therefore its swing.” He found Murray Mints worked the best.
Of course, using artificial means of doctoring a cricket ball is illegal (think bottle tops, sand, a handful of gravel, etc), but the laws surrounding sweets are less clear. After all, it’s only affecting the saliva – and the ICC showed hitherto hidden powers of sense when they told the BBC: “It depends on the evidence and circumstances, so if something is brought to our attention it would be dealt with,” he said. “But where do you stop, for example, if you start to try to stop everyone who is chewing gum?”
Prezactly. This has been going on since WG Grace first wondered whether he should buy a razor. Moving on.
3 Comments »