Batting legend Sachin Tendulkar said the saliva ban has "handicapped" bowlers as he fears it could result in high-scoring games of Test cricket, an important statement ahead of India's four-match series in Australia.
As part of interim measures to curb the potential Coronavirus spread on the field, the ICC earlier this year banned the use of saliva to shine the cricket ball. And while sweat is permitted as a ball-applicator, it doesn't aid swing movement to the extent the saliva does for pacers.
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"With the saliva ban, bowlers are handicapped if you do not have a substitute for saliva," the great Tendulkar told ANI. "Today we do not have any substitute for saliva. Cricket was always like it, sweat and saliva were always there. I would say saliva is more important than sweat, so it is almost as good as 60 per cent. Bowlers would rely more on saliva as compared to sweat."
"If I have to balance it out, bowlers would be 60 per cent depended on saliva and 40 per cent on sweat. That is being taken away from them. To me, bowlers are handicapped without a doubt. There should have been an alternative, but the alternative is still not there."
"It is literally like asking a batsman you cannot score runs on the offside, you can only score on the onside. There is no substitute provided for saliva and that's why bowlers are handicapped," he added.
India's first-choice Test quicks Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami didn't enjoy the best of times during the white-ball leg of the Australian summer, especially the ODIs which they played together. But Tendulkar said that won't affect their performances in what is a completely different form of the game.
"Every match you are not going to get everything right," he said ahead of the Test matches. "Sometimes the batting does not work, sometimes the bowling does not work, sometimes the fielding lets you down. So this is part and parcel of the sport, you are not going to get everything right each time. The balance between bat and ball is not there in white-ball format. That is a different format and Test cricket is different."
"It is important to segregate these things, I would personally like the bowlers to be focused just on Test cricket and would want them to forget what has happened in the past. They are different formats, let's not think that we have not bowled well in ODIs. Tests are different and you need to have a different approach," Tendulkar added.
Both Bumrah and Shami looked in fine rhythm during the second of India's pre-series warm-up matches at the SCG, which augurs well before Adelaide's D/N pink-ball series opener starting Thursday (December 17).
