Mumbai, March 21 -- You can spit and shine once again, at least in the Indian Premier League. At the captains' meeting ahead of IPL 2025 at the BCCI headquarters here on Thursday, all 10 agreed that the ban on the use of saliva to shine the ball can be lifted to offset some of the bat-ball imbalance caused by the Impact Player rule that has seen par scores substantially go up.
Another new move agreed is allowing the use of a second new ball midway through the second innings of a match to minimise the impact of dew.
The saliva ban was introduced in May 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. In September 2022, the ban was considered 'appropriate' and made permanent. While the view at the time was that the age-old practice of using saliva was un...