COVID-19: VPL to be first tournament to refrain players from applying saliva on ball
May 14, 2020
London [UK], May 14 : Vincy Premier League (VPL), a franchise-based T10 tournament is scheduled to start from May 22 in the Caribbean and it will become the first competition to refrain players from applying saliva on the cricket ball.
With this, competitive cricket will be returning to a full member nation of the ICC for the first time since March, ESPNCricinfo reported.
All cricket in the full member nations has been suspended since March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The VPL will be played between May 22-31 in the eastern Caribbean island country of St Vincent and Grenadines.
"No player would be allowed to use any saliva on the ball. Of course, we will be having different dedicated, assigned spaces around the players' pavilion for teams so that they are not necessarily crowded together. All teams would have their own space where they could practice physical distancing," ESPNCricinfo quoted St Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association president Kishore Shallow as saying.
"What we have been doing is managing the risk. So what we plan to do during the tournament is to ask spectators to practice social and physical distancing. So they will be sitting at least a few seats apart. And because of the time the matches are taking place, we do not anticipate a massive crowd at the matches," he added.
Players tend to apply saliva on the cricket ball to make the ball shine, and there have been wide reports suggesting that the International Cricket Council (ICC) is also looking to ban the usage of saliva once international cricket resumes.
The VPL will feature six teams and it is set to be open for fans as there are no restrictions imposed by the government in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
In the six-team tournament, 30 matches are slated to be played, and daily, three matches will go ahead.
A total of 72 players were picked by the six franchises via a draft held on May 11 and among these players, three are marquee Windies cricketers.
