Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of changes has taken place everywhere including cricket. The fans for quite some time now, won’t be able to watch players celebrating without any hesitation. Matches will be played behind closed doors in a bio-secure environment keeping the player’s safety in mind. International Cricket Council (ICC) has also made a few bio-secure protocols for cricketers that they need to strictly follow.

In a first yesterday, England’s Jofra Archer was dropped from the England squad for the second Test for not following the ICC rules. This move made it very clear that al the players will have to follow every direction and commands from ICC to ensure that they don’t compromise on their safety.

Here are the 5 Bio-secure protocols cricketers need to follow:

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1. Saliva Ban

For the time being the ICC has banned any saliva being applied on the cricket ball. Bowlers generally put saliva on the ball to make one side of the ball shine so that it could help in the reverse swing.

Post pandemic ICC has don’t want any player to be found positive of the COVID-19 as it spreads from human to human through intake of droplets. A lot of debate has been going around on this with many cricketers claiming that it will rule out reverse swing from the game. But going by the current scenario, the players will have to abide by the bio-secure protocols.