My suggestion to not use saliva on the ball 10-11 years ago was ridiculed in a board meeting: Shoaib Akhtar

Cricket has come to a standstill due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. Last cricket match played at any level was on March 15 in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) and since then, all the series are either being postponed or cancelled. There is no idea when the normalcy will return and moreover, certain cricket rules are also expected to be changed to avoid spreading of any kind of virus in the future.

One of them is using the saliva on the ball and the ICC might restrict this action once the action resumes post the pandemic. However, the former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar has now come up with a stunning revelation that he had raised this saliva issue almost 10-11 years ago to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) only to be ridiculed.

While speaking in his Youtube channel, the 44-year-old recalled the incident when he had expressed his concerns over the ball shining method and claimed that if a certain player has some disease then it might spread to the other players to due to the use of saliva. But Akhtar said that many had laughed on his suggestion and ignored him then,

“I raised this issue during a board meeting 10-11 years ago but I won’t name who was present during that discussion,” said Akhtar in a YouTube video. “I told them that multiple players use the ball during a match and if someone has a hand or mouth disease, then there are chances that it will spread. So we should stop doing this. But they ridiculed my suggestion and told me to forget about it,” Shoaib Akhtar said.

Now that the usage of saliva has become an issue now, it will be interesting to see if the ICC allows any other method to shine the ball in the near future.

Pat Cummins had earlier expressed his concerns over restriction of saliva

Rather there were talks of not using saliva on the ball when a few matches were set to be played behind closed doors last month. Even the India pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar had also said that they might not apply saliva on the ball during the ODI series against South Africa. Rather the Australia pacer Pat Cummins had feared of a huge advantage going away from the bowlers especially in the Test matches.

“As a bowler I think it would be pretty tough going if we couldn’t shine the ball in a Test match. If it’s at that stage and we’re that worried about the spread, I’m not sure we’d be playing sport,” he had said.

Here’s the video: