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England’s Joe Root resorts to shining the ball on Jack Leach’s HEAD in a creative quest for wickets on the dead ground of Rawalpindi…as Pakistan’s openers add to the ever-growing count of centurions in the Test
England were forced to resort to wiping the sweat straight off Jack Leach’s head for wickets in a dead Rawalpindi field.
Enthusiasm for England’s first Test tour to Pakistan in 17 years has dampened somewhat over the wicket produced at Rawalpindi with host nation supporters lamenting another lifeless mallet for what could have been a gripping match.
Having posted a mammoth first-innings total of 657, England were forced to endure their turn on the pitch, with the players forced to work just as hard as Pakistan’s.
England followed the rather unconventional method of trying to use the sweat from Jack Leach’s brow to get the ball moving.
After knocking out openers Imam-Ul-Haq and Abdullah Shafique, England saw the door ajar and, in an attempt to get the ball moving, resorted to trying to wipe the sweat, directly, off Leach’s head and onto the ball.
Saliva was the traditional method used by cricketers to try to get the ball to swing, but when Covid-19 hit, the International Cricket Council (ICC) banned players from spitting on the ball.
Realizing in that period that sweat was just as effective, that has been the method of choice ever since. Saliva is still prohibited.
In search of wickets in a lifeless field, Joe Root rubbed the ball on Leach’s head
Host cameras caught former Test captain Joe Root running towards Leach, raising his cap and rubbing the ball directly on his head.
Temperatures in Rawalpindi, unlike in Karachi, where they play the third and final Test, are in the low 20s, perfectly comfortable for the England players and with little going on on the pitch, it’s unlikely they’ve pushed themselves too hard.
Test cricket has long been a game that rewards innovation, and England were rewarded for theirs when Leach caught Azhar Ali LBW for 27, the second-lowest score by any top-order batsman in the game.
Leach took out Azhar Ali shortly after Root rubbed the ball on his head.
The incident was liked by the watching broadcasters David Gower and Nasser Hussain, with the latter warning the former left-handed top-order batsman “to stay away from me”.
“Don’t even look my way,” Hussain told Gower.
“It’s ingenious, absolutely ingenious,” Gower replied. ‘Because you’re no longer allowed to use saliva, tests have apparently shown that sweat is much more effective at making a ball shine than saliva, a relic from the Covid days.
“Like you Nass, I never thought of using that particular scalp as a way to get the shine.”
Taking a well-deserved break, Leach briefly escaped to the dressing room, with Hussain suggesting that he “wasn’t having” having had the ball shine on his head.