Dubai: Gautam Gambhir, former Indian opening batsman, feels an alternative for the usage of saliva on the ball may be on the cards when cricket eventually resumes. He, however, felt that players will have to “live with” the coronavirus for the foreseeable future.
Speaking at a Star Sports show, the cricketer-turned-politician said: “I don’t think a lot of rules and regulations will be changed, you can probably have an alternative for the usage of saliva - apart from that I don’t think so many changes will happen.”
“Players and everyone else need to live with this virus; probably they have to get used to it that there is a virus and that it will be around. Players might end up catching it, and you got to live with it.”
Gambhir said social distancing may be easier in cricket compared to other sports. “Social distancing and other rules may not be easy for any sport to maintain. You can still manage to do it with cricket, but how will you do it in football, hockey and other sports as well. So, I think you just have to live with it, probably the sooner you accept it, the better it is,” he said.
The pandemic has brought sporting activities around the world to a grinding halt, including cricket, where all the international fixtures as well as the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been postponed. The T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held in October-November in Australia, is also under a cloud due to the severe travel restrictions.