Otago coach Rob Walter is not convinced cricket authorities need to invite ball tampering into the game.
The ICC is reportedly considering legalising one of cricket’s great taboos to combat the spread of Covid-19.
It is understood it is contemplating the use of artificial substances to shine the red ball.
That would eliminate the need to use saliva or sweat to polish the ball — a big no-no with the world locked in a desperate struggle with the pandemic.
The ability to swing the ball is crucial in order to help balance the ledger between bat and ball.
Spit has proved very useful that way, along with the odd controversial use of lozenges and sandpaper.
Those latter two would not suddenly become legal. The proposal is for an approved substance to be used to polish the ball instead.
But Walter is not convinced there is a pressing need, particularly at first-class cricket level.
"We trialled a new Kookaburra ball for two rounds towards the back end of the Plunket Shield and that ball was behaving more like the old Kookaburra," he said.
"It swung quite a bit and stayed hard for the majority of the game. I think if they produce this ball we trialled then you would probably find less of a need to find different ways of getting the ball to swing because it was swinging anyway."
Walter was not convinced by another proposal by cricket lovers which surfaced about two years ago.
The idea was teams would be offered a quota of balls in different states of wear and tear at the beginning of an innings or match.
It would be up to the teams which of the balls it chose to use at various stages of the innings. That would eliminate the need to tamper with the ball and help reduce the advantage for the home team.
It would also introduce another interesting strategic element to the game as well, and the idea gained a little bit of traction.
"In terms of [the use of] different balls, I think the number of no-results in four-day cricket is so low it is interesting people feel there is an actual problem or a need for us to do a whole bunch of different things when there is a result in games most weeks."
Since this interview, Kookaburra has revealed it has developed a wax applicator which could be used to shine the ball.
