Club cricket return this summer handed huge boost as new study finds risk of coronavirus transmission from a ball is ‘very low’ after Boris Johnson claimed last year it was a ‘natural vector of disease’
- Boris Johnson delayed return of grassroots cricket last year over Covid concerns
- Club cricket returned in July with a strict set of rules including a ‘hygiene break’
- The ball had to be cleaned with an anti-bacterial wipe every six overs
- New research says sport equipment ‘unlikely’ to be major cause of transmission
The chances of club cricket returning this summer have been boosted after a study found the risk of coronavirus transmission from a ball was ‘very low’.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson caused controversy last year when he delayed the game’s grassroots comeback because he said the ball was a ‘natural vector of disease’.
Club cricket did return in July but with a strict set of rules, which included a ‘hygiene break’ every six overs for the ball to be cleaned with an anti-bacterial wipe and players to sanitise their hands.
The chances of club cricket returning this summer have been boosted after a new study
However, new research led by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and co-authored by Dr Nick Peirce, the ECB’s chief medical officer, has shown that sports equipment is ‘unlikely’ to be a major cause of transmission.
‘Anything that is slightly absorbent like a tennis ball or some of the leathery cricket balls, it’s very difficult to transfer any live virus off those,’ said Dr Emily Adams, a senior lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. ‘So we think that transmission from sports equipment is probably very low in these cases.’
The STRIKE study applied a dose – low and high – of coronavirus to different types of sporting equipment including cricket balls, footballs, golf balls, rugby balls, tennis balls, cricket gloves, horse saddles and gym mats.
When the low dose was applied, no virus was detected on any equipment after 15 minutes. For the high dose, ‘viral recovery reduced over time for all materials tested and no virus could be retrieved at 90 minutes, except for the horse saddle and rugby ball’.
Boris Johnson caused controversy when he said the ball was a ‘natural vector of disease’
In conclusion, the study says: ‘There is an exponential reduction in SARS-CoV-2 recoverable from a range of sports equipment after a short time period, and virus is less transferrable from materials such as a tennis ball, red cricket ball and cricket glove.
‘Given this rapid loss of viral load and the fact that transmission requires a significant inoculum to be transferred from equipment to the mucous membranes of another individual, it seems unlikely that sports equipment is a major cause for transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
‘These findings have important policy implications in the context of the pandemic.’
Grassroots sport is currently banned under national coronavirus restrictions. Tennis and golf were the first sports to return after lockdown last summer, with cricket returning two months later.