Former Australia speedster Brett Lee has said that “it will be really hard” for the current bowlers to stop using saliva on the ball and adhere to International Cricket Council’s (ICC) latest guideline.
“It’s a tough call because when you have done something for your entire life, from the age of nine, we are told to apply saliva on the ball to shine it, we have grown up with this and now everyone has been told to do something otherwise, so I think it will be really hard to stop and police, it is going to take a lot of time for people to get used it as applying saliva on the ball is a habit,” Lee said during his interaction with Sachin Tendulkar on the 100 MB app.
“I think there has to be a lot of leniencies, there need to be two-three warnings given to players if they use saliva. ICC should look to give bowlers something, like a new substance about which both bowlers and batters are in agreement,” he added.
The 43-year-old also suggested that if the players were already staying in a bio-secure bubble they could be tested before the game and if they turn negative, the game could be played as usual.
ICC during its meeting in April had discussed the use of artificial substances like vaseline to shine the ball in order to keep the players away from using saliva and sweat to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The ICC Cricket Committee then, led by former Indian captain Anil Kumble, suggested the international governing body of cricket to ban the use of saliva on the ball.
However, Kumble had said that the change was temporary and that the ICC did not wish to legalise any external substance to shine the ball as it could pave the way for increasing incidents of ball-tampering.
“We did discuss that, but if you look back at the history of the game, I mean we have been very critical and we have been very focused on eliminating any external substances coming into the game whether you are literally legalising if you are looking to do that now which obviously has had a great impact over the last couple of years,” Kumble said on Star Sports show Cricket Connected.