Table of Contents
In this long and eventful journey of hard work and patience, sporting equipment becomes one of the most important aspects for a cricketer. For a bowler, it will be his spikes and a shiny cherry red season ball while for the batsmen, it’ll be his entire cricket kit with gloves being one of the most important items.
With such expensive sporting equipment comes great responsibility to take care of them after daily use, however, gloves in specific are always the last to be taken care of and which results in damage and foul smell. The gloves smell majorly because dirt and sweat may accumulate with time and excess usage. For that to be avoided, proper cleaning is a necessity which helps to prevent unwanted smells.
Rather than cleaning your cricket gloves once a season, one must clean it once after every practice session or match day. This prevents the glove from smelling and assures a long-lasting usage of the same.
In this article we’ll go through several ways and techniques that will help prevent your gloves from smelling and help you maintain a pair of clean cricket gloves:
How Do You Keep Cricket Gloves from Smelling?
Keep Your Hands Clean When Using Your Cricket Glove
It is always a compulsion to keep your hands clean while using a cricket glove. Whenever the occasion for practice arises, one must make sure to use soap to clean their hands and pat dry them before inserting them into your dry gloves. Cleaning your hands before usage will avoid any kind of sweat, food stains or grease getting accumulated inside the gloves.
Use an Antibacterial Hand Lotion Before Each Game
Not just your gloves but keeping your hands in good health is a must before each game. Before putting on your gloves, a player must use an antibacterial hand lotion that helps keep their hands clean and healthy and helps them enjoy using their equipment with maximum comfort. This also prevents any bacteria from forming a layer of dirt, creating a foul smell inside your gloves.
Use Inner Gloves
Using a set of inner gloves is a huge advantage for the players. It is easier to remove for wash and dry, and can collect the bulk of the sweat that usually causes the foul smell. Inner gloves also allow you the comfort to make your hands fit perfectly inside the glove and protect the glove from any kind of damage. It protects the gloves and hands by avoiding injuries.
Properly and Regularly Clean Your Cricket Gloves
After a long day of practice, your gloves will have accumulated a lot of dirt and sweat. You must shake your gloves properly to remove the dirt and carry a brush to eliminate the small dirt pores that are always left behind. You must certainly avoid machine drying or ironing the gloves and submerging them in the water. Religiously follow the manual that comes along with the gloves and you will be fine with taking care of them.
Follow Your Manufacturer’s Cleaning Instructions
You have to be very careful when it comes to taking care of your gloves and washing them. You must avoid machine washing your gloves if its instructions state it otherwise. You have to see the gloves’ tag and look for the type of leather the glove is made of and then make your decision on what to clean it with.
Sweat X Odour Eliminator
Sometimes the basics don’t help you get rid of the odour that has been troubling you and making you uncomfortable while using your gloves. To eliminate the smell, use an anti-stink spray that neutralises odours and helps you use your clean cricket gloves without any discomfort. You may find Sweat X Odour Eliminator product on Amazon which is the most trusted, reasonable and effective Odour eliminator.
Use Baking Soda
Baking Soda is one of the most simplistic ways of dealing with stinky odour in an athlete’s gloves. By sprinkling some baking soda on the inside of the glove you can help alleviate some of the smell. Let it sit for a few hours and after the process, your entire glove will be free from any kind of bacterial damage or stinky smell.
Use an Alcohol-Free Leather Cleaning Wipe
With the help of a certain bunch of Alcohol-free leather cleaning wipes, you can remove any gunk or dirt from the gloves, instantly. You may find products of Tub O’ Towels to be proven very effective in this process and available at your earliest convenience on Amazon.
Store Your Gloves Separately From Other Gear
A large cricket kit bag has separate compartments to store your daily used cricket items. To store each item there is a dedicated pocket and hence your cricket gloves must be kept away from every kind of equipment that could damage the quality and reliability of your cricket gloves; for example away from stinky cricket shoes.
Let Your Gloves Air Dry and Store Them Dry
Avoid storing your gloves in wet conditions; let them properly dry to avoid the buildup of smell. A glove can become filled with sweat if there are no inner gloves to protect it. In situations like this, you must not submerge them or clean it with water or roughly brush them. Let them Air dry to naturally remove the sweat and smell.
Try a New Bat Grip
There is a big possibility that the old bat grip is what makes the glove stinky. In a situation like this, the athlete must replace the bat grip if it’s stinky or too old. This allows you to prevent any kind of dust to be collected on the palms of the gloves and helps keep your cricket gloves clean and odour free.
Bite the Bullet and Buy New Gloves
After all the possible techniques and ways, if you still feel uncomfortable while batting or can still smell the stinky odour, it’s time to bite the bullet and head to the store to bid farewell to your old gloves. If the gloves are done and dusted, there is not much a person can do but move on.
Conclusion
These were the ways by which you can keep your gloves clean and odour free in order to preserve them for long-lasting usage. We hope this article helped you with all the necessary details to keep your gloves clean and healthy.
