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XtraTime Web Desk: India’s pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah wants to have an alternative for applying saliva on a cricket ball. The International Cricket Committee (ICC) led by Anil Kumble recommended a ban on using saliva on the ball as an interim measure to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The committee has not named any artificial substitutes for saliva which can prove as an alternative.

“I was not much of a hugger anyway and not a high-five person as well, so that doesn’t trouble me a lot. The only thing that interests me is the saliva bit,” said Bumrah in a chat with Ian Bishop and Shaun Pollock on ICC’s video series ‘Inside Out.’

“I don’t know what guidelines we’ll have to follow when we come back, but I feel there should be an alternative,” he added.

Bumrah said not being able to use saliva makes the game more batsman-friendly.

“If the ball is not well maintained, it’s difficult for the bowlers. The grounds are getting shorter and shorter, the wickets are becoming flatter and flatter.
“So we need something, some alternative for the bowlers to maintain the ball so that it can do something - maybe reverse in the end or conventional swing.”

When former West Indian pacer Bishop pointed out that the conditions have been favourable to the fast bowlers over the last couple of years, Bumrah nodded in agreement.

“In Test match cricket, yes. That is why it’s my favourite format, because we have something over there. But in one-day cricket and T20 cricket one-day cricket there are two new balls, so it hardly reverses at the end.

“Whenever you play, I’ve heard the batsmen - not in our team, everywhere - complaining the ball is swinging. But the ball is supposed to swing! The ball is supposed to do something! We are not here just to give throwdowns, isn’t it?

“This is what I tell batsmen all the time. In one-day cricket, when did the ball reverse last, I don’t know. Nowadays the new ball doesn’t swing a lot as well. So whenever I see batsmen say the ball is swinging or seaming and that is why I got out - the ball is supposed to do that.

“Because it doesn’t happen so much in the other formats, it’s a new thing for the batsmen when the ball is swinging or seaming,” said the 26-year-old.