Venkatesh Prasad Completely Against The Use Of Saliva To Shine The Ball In World Cricket

Former Indian pacer Venkatesh Prasad has opened up on the burning issue of the use of saliva to shine the ball in cricket. Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a lot of talk about using the saliva to shine the ball as a traditional method in the international cricket circuit.

A whole lot of current and former cricketers have shared their views, and now Venkatesh Prasad is the freshest addition to the list who believes that using saliva should completely be banned. Recently, sports equipment manufacturing company, Kookaburra developed a unique wax formula to polish a cricket ball as an alternative to sweat or saliva.

Venkatesh Prasad has made it clear that he personally doesn’t want bowlers to shine the ball using saliva as it is an unhealthy practice.

Venkatesh Prasad Opens Up On The Use Of Saliva To Shine The Ball

“Whether it’s the International Cricket Council (ICC) or BCCI or other sports bodies, they need to find some sort of a framework. For example, I’m talking about IPL. Probably, what I would do is, if this has to go on, if the show has to go on, then I would probably ask the players to travel on chartered flights instead of on regular flights,” Venkatesh Prasad said.

“So, that’s one way of distancing oneself, having a social distance and maintaining the hygiene aspect as well. So, those are the things that one can work around,” Prasad told Timesofindia.com in an exclusive interview.

Nobody Can Use Saliva: Venkatesh Prasad

“And obviously completely taking saliva out of the equation. Nobody can use saliva of course. No matter how healthy, no matter how fit one is, I think for the time being saliva should be really removed,” Venkatesh Prasad added.

“Yes, it is a major weapon for a fast bowler and especially a swing bowler and one thing for sure (is) that you cannot allow any external object or any external things to be used on the leather (ball). I’m completely against it. You cannot use anything. Probably the only thing that can be allowed or that would be possible is to apply is sweat,” Prasad concluded.

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