It's difficult not to like Faf du Plessis: intelligent, articulate, engaging, affable, a batsman of backbone and balls, a captain at once inspired and inspiring, a man so likeable the Australians made a concerted effort to dislike him when he toured there in 2015. What's not to like?
This. "I think it's important to say that I'm not clear yet on that matter [of ball-tampering]," Du Plessis told reporters in Sri Lanka a few days ago.
"The ICC [International Cricket Council] has made the penalties a lot more strict, but they still haven't said what is allowed and what isn't allowed.
"Is chewing gum allowed? Is it not? Are you allowed mints in your mouth?
"As Hashim Amla said, he likes putting sweets in his mouth when he spends a long time in the field. So there's nothing wrong with it.
"For me, I need clarity still. I'm looking forward to speaking to the umpires before the game to make sure there's clarity. I'm sure that Dinesh would as well.
"We know now that the penalties are much harsher. So what do we do with the ball now? As we've seen with Australia, things like that, the penalties are going to be much harsher. We expect that we will see less of that in the game.
"Ball-tampering is a serious offence. If you put something in your mouth and you shine the ball, it's not as serious; that's just my opinion."But at least there is that penalty now, so when someone has the opportunity to . has a decision to make on 'am I going to try and do something with the ball', the penalties that are there now are going to make them think twice.
"So hopefully we will see that part of the game move a little bit in a different way."
For a smart man Du Plessis has taken an unusually disingenuous stance on this issue, and that will not serve him well.
Nothing is unclear about the fact that applying an artificial substance on the ball is against what cricket calls its "laws".
If you can control what goes onto the ball - by, for instance, not using your saliva to polish it if you are chewing gum or eating sweets or mints, or have recently taken a slug of an energy drink rather than water - then do so.
If you can't - the players' sweat that gets onto the ball is likely to be muddled with sunscreen - then don't and leave the ICC to rewrite its rules accordingly when the inadequacies of the current set are made plain. You know what's allowed and what isn't, and just because your opinion differs from the rules doesn't mean more clarity is required. It means you don't agree with the rules.
Until they are changed, and even once they are, you are going to have to abide by them or not be caught breaking them.
And if you are caught you have to accept the stipulated punishment or find something else to do for a living.
Not that Du Plessis is the only villain of this piece. The game he mentioned is the first test in Galle, and "Dinesh" is Dinesh Chandimal, who would have captained Sri Lanka had he not stood down in anticipation of being hit with a ban by the ICC on a charge of conduct contrary to the spirit of the game.
He held up play for two hours in a test in St Lucia in June, arguing with the umpires about their allegations of, yes, ball-tampering.What a mess. Chandimal deserves his smack upside the head: he's too old and should be too grown up to throw the kind of tantrum that delays proceedings in a test. But the ICC, too, are in the wrong.
Having been embarrassed by Cricket Australia's hysterical overreaction to what Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft got up to at Newlands in March, the suits' knees jerked and, earlier this month, the maximum penalty for ball-tampering soared from a test or two one-day internationals to six tests and a dozen ODIs.
Some common sense wouldn't have gone amiss: allow bowlers and fielders to use whatever they may reasonably take onto the field to do whatever to the ball. So spit - sugary or not - fingernails, teeth and even boot spikes wouldn't be a problem but sandpaper would.
Clear?..