The International Cricket Council (ICC) is all set to have Cricket Australia (CA) knocking on its door for permission to use disinfectants on match balls to understand if it can further help reduce the health risk to players in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alex Kountouris, CA's sports science and sports medicine manager, said the board has drawn up a set of health guidelines for players to safely return to training in the near future, even as there is no certainty when they could step on the field for a cricket match again.
Disinfecting the balls would be a further means to avoid on-field viral spread after the ICC Cricket Committee's recommendation for the governing body to impose an official ban on applying the saliva.
"Disinfecting the ball is a consideration," Kountouris was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au. "We'd have to speak to the ICC and get permission, there's a lot of things (to consider). And whether it's effective or not. The ball being leather, it's harder to disinfect because it's got little nooks and crevices."
"We don't know how infected the ball is going to get and we don't know if it's going to be allowed. But it's absolutely a consideration. Everything is on the table at the moment, everything is being considered."
If the cricket restarts in other countries before, CA wishes to take a cue of how the precautionary measures are working before implementing them down under.
"From an Australian cricket perspective, other countries are probably going to play before us," said Kountouris.
"We've got a chance to work with the ICC and other countries to see what they come up with and how it works for them. We'll obviously take whatever steps we need to do to make sure we lower the risk."
At the moment, though, the focus is on ensuring players are being educated about the new training guidelines and are quitting the habits developed over the years. They'll be required to use their own ball at training, minimise the amount of equipment that is shared, and regularly sanitise all their equipment.
"It's going to be a tough habit to break. Some people are used to licking their fingers before they grab the ball, they're used to shining the ball. It's going to be a steep learning curve and hopefully, we've got some time to practice that sort of stuff," said Kountouris.
"Yep, there are going to be mistakes at some point and we haven't worked out how we're going to deal with those mistakes and what the outcome will be," he added.
(Inputs from cricket.com.au)
