Cricket boards have been eager to resume action, having been financially hit owing to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has halted international cricket since March. Fixtures are being chalked out, logistical issues are being looked at even as the boards remain in constant touch with each other trying to agree upon dates to return to the 22 yards. However, cricket, in general, is set to witness quite a few changes post lockdown which are required to secure the players in what seems a long-drawn battle against the novel coronavirus.

One of the many changes made by the International Cricket Council (ICC), besides the resumption guidelines, has been the 'no-saliva rule'. On May 22, the governing council agreed with its Cricket Committee suggesting the prohibition on the use of saliva to shine the ball as part of the new safety protocols in a post COVID-19 world. But, the rule itself has come under a growing discomfort expressed by the bowlers across the globe.

Although a "temporary ban" as clarified by Cricket Committee head Anil Kumble, Australia's premium quick Mitchell Starc has opined that in the absence of saliva to shine the ball, batsmen will be handed too much of an advantage thereby denying an equal contest between bat and ball which is certain to make the game "boring".

"If they are going to take away a portion of maintaining the ball there needs to be that even contest between bat and ball, otherwise people are going to stop watching and kids aren’t going to want to be bowlers. There are some pretty flat wickets and if that ball is going straight it’s a pretty boring contest," said Starc.

Speaking on the same lines to Ian Bishop and Shaun Pollock on the ICC's video series, India's pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah reckoned that provision for an "alternative" to saliva for bowlers should be made to maintain the ball.

"If the ball is not well maintained, it's difficult for the bowlers. The grounds are getting shorter and shorter, the wickets are becoming flattered and flatter. So, we need something, some alternative for the bowlers to maintain the ball so that it can do something - maybe reverse in the end or conventional swing," Bumrah explained.

Cricketing minds, for years, have been trying to reduce the bat-ball imparity, but will ICC's no-saliva rule only worsen the scenario?

According to Dr Edouard René Ferdinands, a cricket biomechanics researcher at the University of Sydney, the ban should be “permanent for obvious clinical reasons”, but he also feels that alternatively, it will make cricket increasingly “bat-dominated and hence boring” as the skill and artistic demands of the sport will diminish.