LONDON, June 7, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – An International Cricket Council
board meeting on Wednesday could see the global governing body uphold
a recommendation to prohibit the use of saliva in order to stop the
transmission of the coronavirus.
Bowlers traditionally get the ball to move or swing in the air,
thereby making it harder for batsmen to hit, by applying shine to one
side via sweat — which can still be used — or saliva.
However, as a temporary measure to combat COVID-19, the ICC’s cricket
committee has suggested banning the use of saliva.
AFP Sport shines a light on the issue:
Massie’s match
— One of the most extraordinary individual performances in cricket
history saw Australia swing bowler Bob Massie take 16 for 137 on his
Test debut against England at Lord’s in 1972.
Yet Massie won just five more caps and took only 15 more wickets,
with the bowler himself saying he had struggled on a subsequent tour
of the West Indies where he adjusted his action and was never the same
cricketer again.
Massie’s remarkable maiden Test and the lavish swing he generated
at Lord’s led to suggestions he’d applied lip salve to the ball in
order to maintain the shine — an accusation he has always denied.
“Some days things go just right,” Massie said by way of explaining
his remarkable introduction to Test cricket.
Reverse swing
— It used to be thought that as a cricket ball got older it would
swing less.
But a technique pioneered by Pakistan paceman Sarfraz Nawaz, partly
in response to the slow and batsmen-friendly pitches of his homeland,
led to the development of reverse swing.
“Just using sweat won’t be of much help because that will only make
the ball wet and that shine will be missing,” said Sarfraz.
Sarfraz confused a succession of batsmen by bowling in-swingers
with an old ball.
He helped compatriot Imran Khan add reverse swing to his armoury
and in the 1990s there were probably no better exponents than the
Pakistan fast-bowling duo of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.
In 1992, the pair took 43 wickets between them as Pakistan won a
five-match Test series in England 2-1.
Mint condition
— Over time, teams all round the world came to realise that in
order to generate reverse swing it was vital the ball was ‘looked
after’ properly, with one side polished and the other kept bone dry.
Swing bowlers such as Andrew Flintoff, Matthew Hoggard and Simon
Jones were pivotal to England regaining the Ashes from Australia in
2005.
But it was England opening batsman Marcus Trescothick who later
revealed he had put Murray Mints sweets to good use in the field
because sucking them stimulated most saliva, which could then be
applied to the ball.
Play on with Pollock?
— It seems unlikely cricket chiefs will row back from the saliva
ban but former South Africa paceman Shaun Pollock, even though he is a
member of the ICC cricket committee, gave current swing bowlers a
glimmer of hope by suggesting health checks in place for next month’s
behind closed doors three-Test series between England and the West
Indies might make it redundant.
“I think the environment that’ll end up being created is almost
going to be like a bubble,” Pollock told the Following On Cricket
Podcast.
“People will get tested, they’ll go into a two-week camp where
they’re just going to sit and monitor how the conditions of their
bodies change.
“And if there are no symptoms, it doesn’t really matter about
shining the ball then, because you’re in the bubble and no one you
come into contact with will have coronavirus.
“So you can just get on with normal proceedings.”