Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood has raised his concerns over the possibility of banning ball shining in Cricket amid Coronavirus pandemic once cricket resumes.
With virus mostly spreading through air droplets, Saliva is direct source of spreading it from one person to another.The established practice of shining the ball in order to generate movement in the air might be under threat once it is considered safe to stage games of professional cricket again.
While Hazlewood is less concerned about the effects of banning ball shining in white-ball cricket, where the ball tends to move in the air less anyway, he is wary of how a ban on ball shining would affect Test cricket.
I think the white ball would be fine, [but] Test cricket would be very hard,” said Hazlewood. “Bowlers rely on any sort of sideways movement in the air. If you didn’t maintain the ball at all for 80 overs it would be quite easy to bat after that initial shine has gone.
“Whether you use saliva or sweat, maybe one person can do it. I’m not sure. It’s something that will have to be talked about when we get back out there and hopefully come up with a solution.”
Meanwhile call for spitting on cricket by Medical experts is growing amid COVID19 pandemic. The experts say cricketers should be banned from using spit to shine the ball when play eventually resumes after the coronavirus crisis.
“Spitting on the ball would definitely be a risk, particularly given how infective the virus is and how long it has been found to survive on inanimate surfaces,” said Richard Bradbury, an epidemiologist from Federation University in Melbourne. “I doubt it would be allowed.”