The man polishing the ball has the hardest job in the field

Shine management is a full time role performed by whoever is nearest, with almost no thought given to who that should be.

Somebody on that field is responsible for the condition of the ball, and in most teams nobody has actually decided who.

It matters more than the casual attention it gets. Conventional swing needs one side smoother than the other, and the difference is created by hand, over after over, in the gaps between deliveries. Rub the wrong side and you have destroyed the asymmetry. Rub it unevenly and you have a ball that swings for two deliveries and then stops. Let the rough side get accidentally polished by a wet outfield or a lazy throw skidding on grass and the reverse swing you were building toward at over forty simply never arrives.

Since saliva went, the job got harder in a way that has not been fully absorbed. Sweat is less effective, it is inconsistent depending on the weather, and there is only so much of it available on a cool morning. Which means the shine now depends more on labour and less on chemistry. More rubbing, harder rubbing, by more people, for longer.

So who does it? Usually whoever the ball reaches, which is a system with no author. The mid off fielder gives it a wipe on the way back. A slip has a go between overs. The bowler polishes it on his trousers in his run up, which is the least controlled rubbing of the lot because he is thinking about his delivery. Four different people applying four different pressures to a ball whose value depends on uniformity.

My argument is that this should be assigned the way we assign anything else. One or two designated fielders, chosen for having the right trousers and the patience for it, and the ball routed through them by habit. Some sides do exactly this and never mention it. Most do not, and then wonder why their reverse swing shows up on Tuesday and not on Thursday.

The umpires check the ball for damage, which is right, but the sport has no interest at all in the far more consequential question of whether a side is competent at maintaining it. There is a genuine skill going almost entirely unmeasured, performed by a man everybody assumes is doing nothing but standing at mid off.