Still unexplained
The hunt for the origins of Covid-19 has for the past four years been a tangled web of politics, power struggles, and international finger-pointing.
Former Pakistan speedster Wasim Akram has not supported the ICC Cricket Committee’s latest decision to ban the usage of saliva to shine the ball and said allowing sweat is not enough and ICC will have to find a “reasonable solution” to the problem.
“I’m sure fast bowlers won’t like it if they are stopped from using saliva to shine the ball. They are allowing sweat but I can say for sure that it isn’t the same,” he said.
“You shine the ball with saliva and sweat is just something of an add-on, a top-up. Too much use of sweat will leave the cricket ball too wet,” he added.
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“I believe that they will need to find a reasonable solution. But I would say that they will need to find a quick fix to this problem.”
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.
Meanwhile, the ICC Cricket Committee, led by former Indian captain Anil Kumble, has already 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.
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