Matthew Hoggard: 'Bowlers will find new ways to shine cricket ball with saliva banned'

Former England fast bowler Matthew Hoggard believes that fielding teams will experiment with substances that act as the most effective polish following the International Cricket Council’s decision to ban applying saliva to the ball due to Covid-19.

“Because you can't use saliva there's going to be a whole host of people coming up with new ideas of how to try and shine the ball,” Hoggard said. “You might get somebody that comes out with the ball-shining technique of the century and make the ball really really smooth and swings around corners. And then the batsmen are going to be like 'oh you can't do that' and come up with a new rule to ban bowlers from getting an advantage. So, I see it as an opportunity.”

Hoggard took 248 Test wickets for England from 2000-08, and is regarded as one of the country’s finest ever swing bowlers.

“So what are you gonna put on your skin? You're gonna say right then, let's put some moisturiser on it, let's put something that's gonna give it a shine. Then it'll come off really shiny - put sun cream on that does the same sort of stuff.

“It's been an old thing, we need to look after the ball, we'll put some spit on it, with sugar on it and it comes back nice and shiny. We don't have to invent that wheel again because it works. Now that's been taken away, they're going to have to re-visit the things that we used to put on the ball anyway, like lip salve and vaseline and all that sort of malarkey.”

While Hoggard expects fielding sides to try new methods now that applying saliva to the ball is no longer permitted, he said that he expects the ball to swing in a very similar way to as it has done before, especially with sweat still permitted on the ball.

“I think the sweat will work as well as spit,” he said. “I don't think this is going to change the way that the ball behaves.

“If you just looked at it purely on the science, it shouldn't affect it because we should be able to put sweat on it, we should be able to put something else on it to shine it. It's not the shine - it's just the smoothness that you need on the leather.

“When was the last time you went for 80 overs without shining it with spit? Nobody does it. So, it might even enhance it because it's something we haven't tried, and somebody will come up with - I won't even say a way of bending the rules, a way of keeping that ball shiny.”

The methods that Hoggard predicts seem to be within the current laws of the games, but could highlight perceived confusion about the rules. Law 41.3 of the laws of the games allows players to “polish the ball on his/her clothing provided that no artificial substance is used and that such polishing wastes no time.”

In 2018, Faf du Plessis, then South Africa’s Test captain, said that “There are too many grey areas when it comes to the ICC and the rules”. There have been reforms to ball-tampering regulations since, following the bans of three Australian Test cricketers for applying sandpaper to the ball in 2018.

Since Covid-19, the ICC discussed making changes to regulations on what fielders can do to the ball, but has decided that permitting sweat is sufficient, with home teams also having the option of producing more bowler-friendly wickets.

Hoggard believes that if the sport shows it can maintain the balance between bat and ball, there may be no reason to reintroduce saliva in the future. “If you can come up with an alternative that's just as good or even better, people will think 'you used to spit on that’?”

Hoggard’s optimism about what the ban on saliva could mean for swing bowlers was not shared by Australian pace bowler Mitchell Starc.

“That contest between bat and ball, we don’t want to lose that or get further away from that even contest,” Starc said. “So there needs to be something in place to keep that ball swinging.” Starc suggested that one option would be “to leave more grass on the wickets” to maintain the balance between bat and ball.

Carl Crowe, a leading spin bowling coach - whose clients include the West Indies off spinner Sunil Narine - told Telegraph Sport that he feared that banning saliva could reduce the amount of turn that spin bowlers got.

“Ultimately it will prevent the bowler from being able to get a good grip on the ball and really impart maximum amount of revs on it,” Crowe said. “Spinners like to lick their fingers or use saliva to get their fingers more tacky in order to be able to grip the ball a bit more.”

Crowe said that the arm ball - a surprise delivery in which off spinners can obtain out swing - could be particularly affected. “There isn't quite so much shine on the ball for the arm ball if saliva’s not allowed.

“If you’re an off spinner you won’t be able to swing your arm ball quite as much I’d imagine. It probably needs a shinier ball to be delivered. You’d imagine with the lack of the ability to add saliva the balls will generally not be quite as shiny.”