Having seen the first bio-secure Test between England and West Indies in Southampton, former India pacer Irfan Pathan reckons fast bowlers across the globe should forget about reverse swing for the time being.
Another ex-India speedster Ashish Nehra also feels the same. In fact, Nehra believes even conventional swing was bit of a problem due to lack of saliva during the first international cricket match amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
See Also - Sweat not possible everywhere, going to be challenging without saliva: Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Notably, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has banned the traditional practice of using saliva to shine the ball in order to avoid the potential on-field Coronavirus spread.
"Jimmy Anderson was bowling short of length at times and he never bowls such short of length. Because the Dukes ball wasn't swinging. The reason being lack of shine with no saliva being allowed and whenever he tried pitching up, the Windies batsmen were driving easily," Nehra told PTI on Monday (July 13).
"Not being able to use saliva when there isn't much perspiration will be a problem. Anderson's strength is to pitch it up and get it to swing which leads to caught behind and slip catches. He looked half the bowler when it stopped swinging," he added.
Pathan, after watching Mark Wood and Jofra Archer bowl on the fifth day under bright sunshine, came to the conclusion that bowlers should "forget about getting reverse with the old ball".
"Since saliva is thicker, it affects reverse swing more than conventional swing which requires sweat for shining the ball. Till the pandemic is there and the rule stays, the bowlers will have it a bit tougher than usual," he stated.
So what's the solution according to Irfan? "Simple. Allow use of external substance or else for sometime forget that reverse swing exists. Make pitches that will be conducive to seam bowling."
"If you ask me keep a bit of moisture to make it 60/40 in favour of bowlers. If there's moisture, the ball would grip the surface and then both sweat and saliva are out of equation.
"Aap phir seam hit karo, harkat hoti rahegi (hit the seam and ball will move around). Or else there will be dead rubbers," he explained.
Coming to the Test match, West Indies defeated England by four wickets at the Ageas Bowl. The visitors dismissed the hosts for scores of 204 & 313 either side of 308 of their own in the first innings and then chased down an onerous target of 200 runs on the fifth day to claim a 1-0 lead in the three-match Test series.
(With PTI inputs)
