Bio-bubble, sweat and no saliva
Proposed new rules are just not cricket
ZAAHIER ADAMS
Don’t you just love a Facebook memory?
My timeline was flooded this week with “memories” of #CWC19. A year ago I boarded a flight for London’s Heathrow. Although the Proteas’ performance at #CWC19 was unspectacular, it did not detract from my experience and enjoyment of watching the world’s best cricketers do battle for close on two months in England.
The next ICC tournament is the T20 World Cup to be held in Australia in a few months’ time, but the signs are not promising that it will go ahead with the ICC’S board of executives postponing their decision to June 10.
While cognisant of the health-related risks attached to it, there are daily zoom meetings across the world involving cricket associations, health officials and governments to formulate a safe plan going forward.
The emphasis here is on the word “safe”. One suggestion put forward is the creation of a “bio-bubble” to provide a sanitised playing environment.
Indian great Rahul Dravid believes it’s not viable, saying: “In case of the bio-bubble, you do all the testing and quarantine and then on day two of the Test match, what if one player, for example, tests positive?”
I support every motion to get the game under way again in a safe environment. The temporary use of home umpires instead of neutral umpires makes complete sense. One-day Internationals and T20s are already officiated solely by home umpires.
The Umpire Review Decision System should cancel out fear of home bias. The fact that the ICC have implemented a system where every team will get an additional review per innings vindicates the decision even more.
The same ICC committee recommended that sweat can be used to shine the ball, but not saliva. While this is understandable in the current situation, we are entering murky territory. Bowlers have long complained about being marginalised – that the game favours batsmen and have petitioned that “ball tampering” be legalised.
Leading bowlers such as Australia’s Mitchell Starc have declared that not being able to shine the ball using saliva will lead to “boring cricket”.
“If they’re going to take away a portion of maintaining the ball there needs to be that even contest between bat and ball, otherwise people are going to stop watching and kids aren’t going to want to be bowlers. There are some pretty flat wickets and if that ball is going straight it’s a pretty boring contest.”
Maybe it’s a case of that or nothing at all. What is that saying about the new norm again?
My concern, though, is that in the rush to get back to bowling, batting and fielding in the outdoors that the game’s entire structure may be lost.
If this sounds naive that the entire game may be lost anyway if the return is not hastened, then maybe I am not privy to the exact amount of rands, pounds, dollars and rupees being lost every time a series is being cancelled.
The safety of everyone related to the sport is of paramount importance, but when new “rules” are being discussed relating to possibly the wicketkeeper standing 5m back from the stumps when a spinner bowls and the slips all stand 2m apart to adhere to physical distancing, that’s simply just not cricket.