And onto their gloves. I fully expect cheating; millions of $ are at stake. (I’ve also wondered if other teammates in the field have doctored the ball for the pitcher.)
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Forget Trumpvirus, this became a serious issue with the advent of HD TV, when you could suddenly see every fleck of mucus.
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Are they still allowing the rhubarb?
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Sometimes…a lot of times, there would be loads of spit and snot flying off the ball towards the batter with the old spitball (snotball). Kind of gross, but hey, they still get to dig at their asses, their balls, and inside their nose and nobody seems bothered. I say let the lungers fly!
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They didn’t change the ball everytime it touched the ground and everyone chewed tobacco in the old days so the ball was a soggy brown lump. Definite advantage for the pitcher.
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In the past, prpbably. Nowadays, the ball is changed so often, it might not be worth the trouble.
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So…when they told the players to “hit the showers,” they probably should’ve specified the Silkwood kind. 
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Thank you!!! We do nothing but run around. And rush around. Eat fast food while we are driving between stuff we are rushing to. Rush. Rush. Rush.
Sometimes it’s nice to have something to sit and watch for 3 1/2 hours and enjoy yourself on a nice summer day.
It’s not just the action. It’s the tradition. The ritual. The spending 3 1/2 hours with your family with nobody on a screen. Teaching your kids about the finer points of the game the way your dad taught you when you were a kid.
Maybe if you don’t get it, your not watching the right way???
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So no spit and polish for cricket balls either
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It’s not my jam, but I’m glad a lot of people enjoy it. My ribbing was intended in good humor. Baseball is a wonderful part of American culture and history, and while I’m not personally a fan, I believe we’d be diminished without it.
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The balls will be replaced after being handled by a specified small number of players.
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3 1/2 hours? With Test Cricket, you can enjoy three days, eight hours a day, watching an empty, rain-lashed pitch; and have the outcome of the game decided by the Duckworth-Lewis Method. Now, that’s a real sporting event. 
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I think (American) football is something like eleven minutes. But at least they have cute cheerleaders.
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DLS is not used for Tests only limited overs matches.
But you can spend three days reliving test matches from the radio commentary here
The breaks are often the most entertaining, Ask the Umpire is always good.
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Fantastic; that’s so very Cricket. A friend always used to watch the games on TV with the sound off, while listening to Johnners on the radio, and smoking dope.
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Everyone is missing the most crucial point here!! Expelling of bodily fluids has been made illegal and there is now LITERALLY no crying in baseball!
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But the commentary for these three days is often the best
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I think ball polishing isn’t really a huge deal in recreational cricket anyway and luckily Alexander has no say in the professional game. But now that the ICC have outlawed spit maybe they should make yellow sandpaper legal…
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Yeah but somehow every year they add rules to make the game go faster. I hate it.
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Seriously. We already lost the LOOGY this year, now spitting?!? I almost can’t. Manfred is the worst.
