England dominated the opening day of the first Test against India at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Friday (February 5).
Riding on skipper Joe Root’s 128 not out and opener Dom Sibley’s 87, the visitors ended with 263/3 at stumps on Day 1.
Speaking after the day’s play, India speedster Jasprit Bumrah said that the saliva ban made it difficult to maintain the ball as sweat was not effective.
Notably, ICC has banned the traditional practice of saliva in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak.
“The ball did become soft after a while and the wicket is on flatter side with the bounce being less. You are left with limited options (to shine ball). We are trying to figure out what we can do with the limited things in hand, at that time,” Bumrah said at the virtual media conference, as quoted by PTI.
“It becomes difficult when the ball becomes soft and doesn’t shine really well because of new COVID-19 rules, we can’t use saliva, very difficult during that time to maintain the ball,” he added.
Bumrah, who was India’s most successful bowler on Day 1 with a couple of scalps, also explained why sweat isn’t at all a good option to prepare the ball for reverse swing.
“In India, the ball gets scuffed up easily. So to make the ball heavy, you have to shine one side sometimes, with sweat and it doesn’t really serve the purpose. You can’t make one side heavy with sweat and it doesn’t really work that way.
“But these are the rules and we have to make do with what we have at the moment,” he remarked.
Sharing his experience of bowling on the Chepauk wicket, Bumrah said: “This is my first match over here. The wicket was on the flatter side, not lot of lateral movement was there. It was abrasive but we are not trying to complaint how the wicket is but trying to figure out what the solutions are. We are trying to look at options that are there in our hand and create as many chances as we can.”
Bumrah felt that during the final session for a brief period, the shoulders were dropping a bit which can always happen after a long partnership.
“We were okay in the first two sessions but in the beginning of the last session, we were a bit here and there, because when you have a lot of incentives and you get a lot of wickets, body language is automatically up.
“But yeah sometimes, in this heat, it’s difficult to keep the body language up. I think we were okay and putting in a lot of effort,” he said.
(With PTI inputs)
