The Rawalpindi pitch in the ongoing Test between England and Pakistan has been a batting paradise with bowlers getting little to no help. Sensing that the bowlers were having a tough time breaking the partnership, former England Test skipper Joe Root on Saturday found a rather ingenious idea to keep the ball shining and get it to swing and seam around.
During the 73rd over of Pakistan’s first innings on the third day, skipper Ben Stokes handed the red cherry to Ollie Robinson. While Robinson prepared to bowl the over by handing his jumper to the umpire, Root took the ball and gently rubbed it over Jack Leach’s bald head.
As soon as Root managed to usurp all the sweat from Leach’s head, the latter put on his three lions cap and jogged back to the pavilion.
Commentators Urooj Mumtaz, Dawid Gower and Nasser Hussain were amused by Root’s out-of-the-box thinking and had a good laugh about it.
“I think Root is shining the ball on Leach’s head,” said Nasser Hussain.
After a moment of laughter, Hussain turned to Gower and said, “Don’t even look in my direction,” while the latter gestured at rubbing the former England skipper’s shiny pate.
“It’s classic. It’s ingenious, it’s absolutely ingenious, because you are no longer allowed to use saliva. Tests have apparently proven that sweat is much more effective in shining the ball than saliva – a relic of the Covid days. But I never thought of using that particular scalp as a way of sourcing the shine,” added Gower, who could barely contain his laugh.
After the COVID-19 pandemic cricket’s governing body ICC tweaked the laws and notified that using saliva to shine the ball was illegal. Since then, the teams have been forced to use sweat as a means to shine the ball.
The pitch in Rawalpindi has come under heavy criticism from all quarters for being an absolute flat deck. At the end of play on Day 3, Pakistan had managed to score 499 for the loss of seven wickets, trailing England’s first-inning total by 158 runs.
So far, there have been seven centurions in the match with Babar Azam being the latest addition.
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