So, my friend, you want to legalise ball-tampering, do you? Well, Allan Donald, the great South Africa fast bowler of yesteryear, did not say that so precisely but that was what he was getting at when he suggested that administrators ought to go all laissez faire on bowlers and allow them to “prepare” the ball as they see fit. When a man such as Donald puts forward such a radical suggestion, it is worth reflecting on.

The reason behind his contention that bowlers should basically be allowed to do whatever they like with the ball, provided no outside implements such as bottle tops or Stanley knives are used, is that he, like many, considers the balance between bat and ball to have shifted massively in the past few years in favour of the batsmen. Speaking on behalf on the beleaguered fast bowlers' club, Donald said: “We need some sort of defence mechanism, something to fall back on.”

Donald makes his claim on the assumption that we are in a golden age of batting, a kind of bull market that has sent batting (and bowling) averages soaring. The evidence is often anecdotal and impressionistic, but based on sound empirical research, too.

In the 1950s the average runs per wicket was 30.1 and 6.8 per cent of scores were more than 500. This stayed relatively constant until the turn of this century, which has seen a sharp spike to 34.1 and 8.7 respectively. Runs per hundred balls have never been higher than now.

Expectations of runscoring have soared. When Australia began the final day of the Lord's Test, already five wickets down and needing to score more runs in the last innings than any other team in first-class history, the bookmakers were willing to go only so far as 5-2 on an Australia victory.

Bookmakers are rarely wide of the mark, and in this instance their generosity surely reflected both the general nervousness and the feeling that runscoring in the last innings has never been easier than it is now.

There are good reasons why the balance has become skewed. Although both Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff are role models for the dangers of too much cricket, the intense schedules imposed on modern players benefit batsmen more than fast bowlers. With endless matches stretching out in front of them, bowlers learn how to bowl within themselves, how to protect their bodies for the long haul. Wasn't it noticeable how quick the bowlers were in the World Twenty20, when the light at the end of the tunnel wasn't that of an oncoming train?

The clichés du jour - “in the corridor”, “in the channel”, “the right areas” - suggest that bowling has become more stereotypical, too. For every Lasith Malinga there are myriad seam bowlers hoping to do little more than to hit the top of off stump. After all, wasn't the greatest seam bowler of the past 20 years, Glenn McGrath, little more than a line and lengther? But not all have McGrath-like accuracy and the paucity of ambition allows batsmen a certain comfort level not granted those who had to face, without helmets, the fast bowlers of earlier generations.

The prevalence of one-day cricket has had contrasting effects on batting and bowling. Batsmen have expanded their games, and are now adept at hitting over the top, sweeping, reverse sweeping and general experimentation; bowlers have generally become not more attacking but defensive, with dot balls cherished and containment the order of the day. So whereas one-day cricket has had a largely liberating effect on batting, it has helped to produce bowlers with a more defensive mindset.

But is a liberalisation of the laws the answer to redressing the balance? Cricket Australia clearly thinks not. Faced with a spin-bowling cupboard more sparsely stocked than Old Mother Hubbard's, they have recently decided not to endorse or encourage their spinners to bowl the “doosra”, the ball that has given off spinners a new lease of life.

Ashley Mallett, Shane Warne and Terry Jenner, spin-bowling gurus all, unanimously agreed that the doosra cannot be bowled, only chucked with an arm that goes from bent to straight. Cricket Australia, then, will play by the laws rather than look to allow their spinners the same kind of advantage enjoyed by those on the sub-continent (not that stiff-wristed westerners can be expected to bowl it as well in any case).

For fast bowlers, Donald wants to augment the ball's natural wear and tear with fingernails and, heaven forbid, dirt and such like, but not implements such as bottle tops and razor blades. But this, then, becomes a matter of degree, not one of principle and law. Bowlers (and captains) will always search for ways of pushing the boundaries of fair play but, like children, professional sportsmen need to know what the boundaries are.

The ICC's decision to grant a straightening of the arm - 15 degrees is the present allowance - has been a rare concession to bowlers and is written into the playing regulations - but not the laws - and is based on the knowledge that all bowling actions put under intense scrutiny of slow-motion cameras are suspect and therefore the threat of legal action from anyone accused of throwing would be inevitable. No such problem exists with ball-tampering. It is either allowed within the laws, or it is not.

Administrators need to stay vigilant about the balance between bat and ball because the beauty of the game depends on bowlers keeping batsmen in check. But liberalising the laws on tampering would threaten the balance the other way. In 1990, Chris Pringle, the New Zealand trundler, admitted to tampering with a bottle top in a match at Faisalabad when he took 11 for 152, after taking only two wickets in the first two games. We want to know who the best bowlers are, not those who best gouge the ball.

Legalising tampering, like letting the genie out of the bottle, is fraught with danger. There are surely better ways to ensure a proper balance between bat and ball. The most urgent is something the ICC has recently turned its attention to, which is to rate pitches as poor that are overly batsmen-friendly. Pitches are more adaptable than the laws, and the “chief executive's pitch”, as termed by another besieged fast bowler, Stephen Harmison, should be the first casualty.

Welcome to Edgbaston, then, a ground that has produced 16 draws in its past 20 first-class games. Steve Rouse, the groundsman, has predicted another “graveyard” for the bowlers this week, weather permitting. Now, where's that bottle top, Allan?