Saliva ban needs to be tackled by preparing bowler-friendly pitches, reckons Irfan Pathan

In the wake of the outspread of the Covid-19 pandemic, sporting bodies across the world have made it their priority to improve the standards of health and hygiene in their respective sports, to both ensure that the sport is played safely and in order to curb the spread of the virus. 

And along those lines, the ICC took a big call to impose a ban on the usage of saliva to shine the ball, a practice that’s been religiously followed by the bowler-kind for centuries. The decision, unsurprisingly, divided people, with many believing that this change would further tilt the game in favour of the bowlers. 

Former Indian pacer Irfan Pathan, too, is of the same opinion, that the ban will prove beneficial to the batsmen, but has opined that it can be countered by providing bowlers bowler-friendly wickets so that they would not need to rely too much on shining the ball.

“You will to have make sure that pitches are more suitable to the bowlers than batsmen to negate the advantage (of not being able use saliva). If you are not able to shine the ball properly, you will not be able to cut the air because of scientific reasons,” Pathan told PTI.

“And if you are not able to swing it, the batsman will have it easy because nobody fears just pace, it is the combination of pace and swing that troubles them.”

Pathan, who had a god-gifted ability to viciously swing the ball into the right-hander, further noted that the saliva ban will not have much of an effect in white-ball cricket but stated that bowlers will, however, suffer in red-ball games. 

“It (ban) will affect bowlers a lot in Test matches. It won’t be an issue in white-ball cricket as the bowlers anyway don’t shine the ball after the first few overs, they want to make it soft (to make strokeplay tougher for the batsman),” Pathan explained.

“But in red-ball cricket, whether you are a fast bowler or spinner, you need to shine the ball. Spinner relies on shine to drift the ball. That will be a big advantage for batsman. The game will become even more batsmen friendly.”

One of the major reasons for bowlers maintaining the shine on the ball is for them to generate reverse swing, but the 35-year-old fears that the saliva ban might very well eradicate the art of reverse swing from the game altogether.

“For reverse swing, if you can’t hide the ball, then the batsman knows which way the ball would come unless you are bowling 150 kmph plus and there are very few bowlers currently who generate that kind of pace. You can still apply some sweat and swing the ball normally but the ban would more or less take reverse swing out of the game.”