Bowlers will be allowed to apply saliva on the ball in
IPL 2025. The decision was taken by IPL after majority of the franchise captains voiced for the change at a meeting with the decision-makers of the tournament at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai on Thursday.
ESPNcricinfo has learned that at the meeting several captains agreed that the saliva ban, which was adopted by ICC and followed by the member boards across all levels of cricket, was hurting the bowlers especially in not facilitating reverse swing, which has become rare in white-ball cricket including ODIs where two new balls are used.
The ban on using saliva to polish the ball was first put into place in May 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, as a temporary measure. In September 2022, the ICC made the ban permanent. With bowlers allowed to use sweat to shine the ball, there had been calls from leading voices in the game to allow the use of an artificial substance in place of saliva back then. Jasprit Bumrah
had said back then that there should be “some alternative for the bowlers to maintain the ball”.
Recently, India fast bowler Mohammed Shami
urged the ICC to rescind the ban on using saliva to shine the ball. “We are trying [to get reverse swing], but the usage of saliva on the ball is not allowed,” Shami had told reporters after India’s win over Australia in the Champions Trophy semi-final. “We keep appealing that we should be allowed to use saliva so that we can bring reverse swing back into the game and it becomes interesting.”
He had also got the backing of two former international bowlers in Vernon Philander and Tim Southee.
“That was a rule brought around Covid with the virus going around the world, but I think as a bowler, you want to have a slight advantage,” Southee said on ESPNcricinfo’s Match Day. “We see the game going the way it’s going and seeing sides score 362 and more often than not over 300 in this format. I think there needs to be something in the bowlers’ favour, and whether that’s a little bit of saliva, then yeah, I don’t see why they couldn’t afford to get that back in.”
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