Will saliva ban threaten cricket’s kings of swing?
An ICC board meeting on Wednesday could see the global governing body uphold a recommendation to prohibit the utilization of saliva so that you can stop the transmission of the coronavirus.
Bowlers traditionally get the ball to go or swing in the air through the use of shine to 1 side via sweat -- that may be used -- or saliva.
However, as a short-term measure to combat COVID-19, the ICC's cricket committee has suggested banning the utilization of saliva.
Just about the most extraordinary 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 previously 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 resulted in suggestions he'd applied lip salve to the ball as a way to maintain the shine -- an accusation he has always denied.
"Some days things go perfectly," Massie said, explaining his remarkable introduction to Tests.
Reverse swing used to be thought that as a cricket ball got older it would swing less.
But a method pioneered by Pakistan paceman Sarfraz Nawaz, partly in response to the slow and batsmen-friendly pitches of his homeland, resulted in 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 a vintage ball.
He helped compatriot Imran Khan add reverse swing to his armoury and in the 1990s there have been probably no better exponents than the Pakistan fast-bowling duo of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.
In 1992, the pair took 43 wickets as Pakistan won a five-match Test series in England 2-1.
Mint condition-- as time passes, teams all round the world found realise that so as to generate reverse swing it had been 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.
Nonetheless it was England opening batsman Marcus Trescothick who later revealed he previously put Murray Mints sweets to good use in the field because sucking them stimulated most saliva, that could then be applied to the ball.
It seems unlikely cricket chiefs will row back from the saliva ban but former South Africa paceman Shaun Pollock, despite the fact that he is an associate of the ICC cricket committee, gave current swing bowlers a glimmer of hope by suggesting health checks in place for next month's three-Test series between England and the West Indies might make it redundant.
"I think the surroundings that'll finish up being created is nearly going to end up like a bubble," Pollock told the next On Cricket Podcast. "People are certain to get tested, they'll go into a two-week camp where they're just going to sit and monitor the way the conditions of their bodies change.
"And if there are no symptoms, it generally does not really matter about shining the ball then, because you're in the bubble and no one you touch will have coronavirus.
"So, you can just can get on with normal proceedings."
