Peter Roebuck has a piece on Cricinfo on the history of throwing. It is something of a diatribe against batsmen, harking back to the old days of amateur gentleman batsmen and employed (working class) professional seamers. This is somehow supposed to be relevant today, despite not ever really being an issue in those terms in any cricket playing nation outside of England.
He mentions the previous throwing controversies, the end of Meckiff’s career, and the harshness that results from a banning, given that an action can be remodelled. He praises the change in the law – though it seems mere semantics to me that if you cant notice a straigtening under 15% anyway, then the law has not changed from what an umpire could notice!
The point of the article, it appears, is to praise Murali, and explain that, since he has bowled in front of equipment in an arm brace, and turned his doosra in such situation, any suspicion of his action is misguided at best, and probably racist at worst (although to be fair, he does not make that accusation in this article, but he has in his wider body of work).
Personally, I think the law should not have been changed, and that throwers should not be allowed in the game. The very notion that an action can be “cleared” under laboratory conditions is, to put it kindly, insane. If an umpire believes a ball has been thrown, he should call a no-ball.
It is irrelevant what a bowler can do under controlled conditions; Shane Warne’s recent statements about test match testing of an action were the most sensible thing he has said in a long time, even excluding comments by text message.
I would submit there is more to passing a test than being able to produce one’s whole repertoire of deliveries before static cameras. For instance, a fast bowler could bowl an over at 135kmh, while in a match be able to touch 145kmh by a slight change of action. Alternatively, perhaps he can bowl as fast, but not land the ball, or cause it to swing or seam (or to swing or seam as much).
Similar caveats must apply to testing the action of a spinner. Perhaps he can turn the ball away with an action that is difficult to pick. But can that ball turn as much? Can it be landed as consistently? What about drift, flight and bounce? To those saying that surely such fine distinctions cannot matter, the width of an inch can make all the difference between middle and edge, or a ball landing safely or in the hands of a close field.
In this age of increasing accuracy being demanded of umpires, third umpires, and players alike, deliberately tolerating a blind spot of this magnitude is certainly the elephant in the room. But it appears that nothing can currently be done for fear of splitting the ICC in two, and losing the lucrative half of it at that. Hopefully future generations of administrators will not permanently suffer such weakness.
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spiro zavos said | November 26th 2007 @ 8:07am | Report comment
A couple of years ago John Morrison, a former NZ test cricketer, attended a World Under-19 cricket tournament on the sub-continent. He reported back toNZ cricket authorities that very many of the spin bowlers in the tornament were throwers. As this group of players starts coming through to first-class cricket and test cricket, we are going to see a plethora of ‘Muralis.’ What will the ICC do about this, if one or two of these throwers turn out to be, say, Indian prodigies?
As a person, Murali appears to be an exceptionally engaging and pleasant person. I have no doubt that if he’d been an Australian like Meckiff he would have not been allowed to play test cricket. It’s interesting that other thrower who was allowed to continue to play test cricket even though his action was highly suspect was the burly West Indian, Charlie Griffiths.
Ottayan said | November 26th 2007 @ 9:30am | Report comment
There is one other ‘chucker’ who is roaming free .. i.e., Shoaib Akthar.
He takes wickets in bursts.
If you watch his wicket taking spells on TV it will show him clearly throwing.
sheek said | November 28th 2007 @ 7:42pm | Report comment
Spiro,
What you say about Murali might be true. That is, he wasn’t chucked out for fear of the ICC being seen as a bully boy against a player from a 3rd world country.
The Ian Meckiff affair was truly disgraceful, & also before my time. But I can’t help but think (from what I’ve read) Meckiff was recalled to test duty (hadn’t played test cricket for 2 & 1/2 years), solely so he could be humiliated out of cricket. It seems to me, some of the greatest names in Australian cricket – Bradman, Egar & Benaud – were in on the scam, especially Bradman as chairman of selectors.
If players are going to be kicked out of the game for having a throwing action, it must be done early, before they reach 1st class level. After that it becomes very messy, not to mention humiilating & embarassing for all concerned.
Bob McGregor said | November 28th 2007 @ 8:43pm | Report comment
Umpires are the best officials to regulate “chuckers” and when that role is taken away or overridden by officialdom the game loses creditability in the eyes of the public.
I have little time for Shane Warne the public figure, but I have an enormous respect for Shane Warne the spin bowler. He is the greatest spin bowler of all time. Both he and Glen McGrath have perfect actions and they should be put on pedestals for the bowlers of the future to emulate.
Irrespective of how many wickets Murali ends up being credited with before he retires, the public will conclude his record as being “tainted” by officialdom. Being a member of the public and entitled to my view along with everyone else, I concluded a long ago he was and is a chucker – in concert with quite a few other suspect spinners from the Asian Continent. From the fast bowling brigade, I believe Shoaib Akthar is a chucker as well. I can see the apologists falling off their perches and condemning me for my “racist” statements. But it is the conclusion I came to by watching the actions of these bowlers. Obviously not every delivery is “thrown” but there are sufficient in a spell for me to come to this conclusion. Now some “balance” to the above statements. On occasion, I believe Brett Lee can also be categorised as a chucker. It looks this way when he tries to bowl at top pace. I’m sorry but that’s the way I see it.