ICC's Cricket Committee recommends prohibition on using saliva to shine ball
The International Cricket Council's (ICC) Cricket Committee on Monday recommended some changes to the ICC regulations that include prohibiting the use of saliva to shine the ball in an order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and protect players and match officials.
The recommendations will now be presented to the ICC Chief Executives' Committee in early June for approval. The Committee, chaired by Anil Kumble, concluded a conference call convened to address the issues related to coronavirus that includes maintaining the condition of the match ball and the appointment of non-neutral umpires and referees to international cricket.
"The ICC Cricket Committee heard from the Chair of the ICC Medical Advisory Committee Dr. Peter Harcourt regarding the elevated risk of the transmission of the virus through saliva, and unanimously agreed to recommend that the use of saliva to polish the ball be prohibited," ICC said in a statement.
"The Committee also noted the medical advice that it is highly unlikely that the virus can be transmitted through sweat and saw no need to prohibit the use of sweat to polish the ball whilst recommending that enhanced hygiene measures are implemented on and around the playing field," the statement added. Shining the ball is an important thing for the bowlers to extract some swing from the match. Currently, all the cricketing action across the world has come to a halt due to the COVID-19.
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ICC Cricket Committee Chair Anil Kumble said that "We are living through extraordinary times and the recommendations the Committee have made today are interim measures to enable us to safely resume cricket in a way that preserves the essence of our game whilst protecting everyone involved." The other recommendation includes the local match officials be appointed in the short-term, the use of technology to be increased and the proposal of an additional DRS review per team per innings as an interim measure.
-PTC News
