Australia opener David Warner has become the latest cricketer to voice his concern over the ongoing speculation that ICC may ban the usage of saliva on cricket balls and legalise partial ball-tampering.
An ESPNcricinfo report last week had stated that ICC during its meeting considered the use of artificial substances like vaseline to shine the ball in order to keep the players away from using saliva and sweat to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Criticising it, Warner said that there are other things as well that can spread the virus among cricketers as the players keep “sharing change rooms and everything else”.
“You are sharing change rooms and you are sharing everything else, I don’t see why you have to change that. It has been going around for hundreds of years now, I can’t recall anyone that’s got sick by doing that,” cricket.com.au quoted Warner as saying.
“If you’re going to contract a bug, I don’t think it’d necessarily be just from that. I am not too sure but it’s not my place to comment on whether or not we should or shouldn’t (use saliva to shine the ball). It’s up to the ICC and the governing body to decide,” the 33-year-old added.
Earlier, veteran Indian cricketers Harbhajan Singh and Ashish Nehra had said that saliva and sweat are the required components to maintain the shine of the ball.
“Get one thing clear at the onset. The ball will not swing if you don’t apply sweat or saliva on the ball. That’s a basic necessity of swing bowling. The moment ball gets scuffed up from one side, sweat and saliva must be applied on the other side,” Nehra, who completely shot down the idea of using external substances, told PTI.
Explaining the need to use saliva and sweat, the 2011 World Cup-winning had said that both were used to not only shine the ball but to make one side of it heavier as well which helps the ball to reverse swing. And according to him, the vaseline doesn’t do that.
Harbhajan also agreed that saliva if one has already chewed mint, which has sugar in it, makes it heavier. But when it comes to using an external substance, he wanted to know what can be the options.
West Indian fast bowling legend Michael Holding felt that legalising ball-tampering in the post-coronavirus world would be a bit “self-contradictory”.
“I have read that ICC is contemplating preventing people from using saliva on the ball due to COVID-19 and allowing them to use foreign substances on the ball to keep the shine on but in front of the umpire. I don’t understand the logic behind that,” Holding told ESPNCricinfo. (via PTI)