Pakistan legends hail reverse swing as 'art' not 'cheating'

Pakistan legends and the pioneers of reverse swing bowling have unanimously defended the bowling act as an ‘art’, which can be achieved without tempering the ball.

World cricket has suffered a major blow after Australian Captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were caught tempering the ball during the Cape Town Test against South Africa last week.

Bancroft was found to have used a piece of sandpaper in an attempt to alter the condition of the ball while on the field to create swing for Australia's bowlers and deceive the South African batsmen.

Cricket Australia came down hard, handing a one-year ban each to Smith and Warner and nine months to Bancroft for sullying the country's sporting image.

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Former Pakistan pacer Sarfraz Nawaz, widely regarded as a pioneer of reverse swing, refused to accept the implication that the skill requires ball-tampering. "This is ridiculous to say reverse swing is cheating," Sarfraz said in an interview. "You can achieve reverse swing without tampering with the ball.

Sarfraz passed the art to legendary Imran Khan, who achieved more success than his master but also confessed to ball-tampering by using a bottle top to roughen one side of the ball. Imran passed the torch to Wasim and Waqar -- regarded as one of international cricket's most destructive new-ball pairings.

The two ripped through England´s batsmen on Pakistan's 1992 tour, but were also alleged by British media to have tampered with the ball. Wasim excelled for English county Lancashire for a decade while Waqar starred for Glamorgan and Surrey.

"Those allegations were hurtful," recalled Waqar. "Of course, reverse swing can be achieved without cheating. Nowadays most of the bowlers do that and get wickets and help their teams win."

While Wasim -- nicknamed the 'Sultan of Swing' -- was never caught tampering Waqar was slapped with a one-match suspension and fined 50 percent of his match fee in a tri-series in Sri Lanka in 2000.