Taking a strong stance against the growing talks of a ban on shining the ball with saliva, Pat Cummins, the world’s top-ranked red-ball bowler, said that the world might probably be better off with no cricket at all, if things come down to such a state.
With the coronavirus pandemic still keeping the world under its grips, the use of saliva to use the ball is set to be reviewed, with a possible ban on the practice likely to be enforced in the near future. But Cummins feels that if they can’t come up with an alternative substance to shine the ball, the balance between bat and ball would be massively miscued.
“I’m thinking that if we’re in a position where we’re really worried about passing on the coronavirus, if we’re going to be that careful that we can’t shine the ball, we can’t get close [to teammates], we can’t play the game as we normally would be, I don’t think we’d be playing in the first place,” Cummins said on Kolkata Knight Riders’ blog.
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“Things are going to change in all sports and in the way we live around the world, [but] I don’t want them to totally ban shining the ball. I want them to come up with another option, because I think it’s a big part of cricket.”
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Cummins went on to note how not being allowed to shine the ball would take away significantly from how much swing or, in the case of an older ball, reverse swing, a bowler is able to extract, to the extent that he could be rendered ineffective.
“Whether it’s saliva or something else, as long as we’re still allowed to shine up the ball to make sure it keeps swinging,” Cummins said. “As a fast bowler, you’ve got to be able to shine the ball. Why everyone loves Test cricket is because there is so much art to it. If you can’t shine the ball, that takes away swing bowling, that takes away reverse swing bowling.”
