India legend Sachin Tendulkar and former Australia pacer Brett Lee on Tuesday discussed how ban of saliva will affect the game of cricket in the post Covid-19 world.
While Brett Lee said that “it will be really hard” for the current bowlers to stop using saliva on the ball, Sachin Tendulkar said ICC should make the second new ball available after 50 overs in a Test inning.
“It’s a tough call because it’s something which we have done during our entire life. From the age of 8-9, we were told to use saliva to shine the ball. So, all of a sudden to be told something different like you cannot do that, I think it will be very hard to stop and would be very hard to police,” Lee said while speaking to Tendulkar in a video posted by 100MB.
“If you don’t sweat, how do you shine the ball in absence of saliva. I don’t think its fair for the bowlers and it’s a disadvantage for them,” said Lee.
“I think the ICC needs to look into that. They can assist the bowlers by giving them something they can apply to shine the ball, something which everyone agrees upon.”
International cricket is set to resume with England hosting West Indies in a three-Test series starting July.
“I am not talking about a green track where a team gets bowled out for 130 odd runs, but you need something for the fast bowlers.”
Sachin Tendulkar believes that in cold conditions when players don’t sweat much, it will become more difficult to shine the ball and would be more disadvantageous for the bowlers.
“Allocate a certain amount of wax per inning to be used by a team says X grams,” suggested Tendulkar.
