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South Africa's Johan Botha bowls a delivery while Australia's Ricky Ponting looks on during their One Day International series match at the MCG in Melbourne, Friday, Jan. 16, 2009. AAP Image/Joe Castro
If only Ian Meckiff was playing international cricket today. The man was effectively no-balled out of cricket by the human eyes of umpire Colin Egar.
Now the computer takes over to determine if a player goes beyond the new magical mark of 15-degrees.
But how effective is this process?
South African Johan Botha in 2006 was cited for throwing, and biomechanical testing confirmed he was a chucker. He was suspended.
But then further testing was done later in the year, and “hallelujah, praise the lord,” Johan was cured from the chucking disease.
Well, of course, he was.
He had time to work on straightening out his action for the testers, didn’t he? And you can bet your bottom dollar, as soon as he was cleared to play again, that arm was bent from ball one.
The ICC chucking policy needs to be changed.
If they really want to stamp out chucking, a player needs to be cited secretly, so they are unaware of being monitored – otherwise they’ll just change their actions for a in-house test.
Which is exactly what Botha will do when the ICC’s human movement specialists monitor him. He probably won’t even bowl his doosra, which is the problem ball.
Players have to be tested while bowling in a proper match. This is the only way you can know for sure whether a player is a chucker.
Instead of investing in hawk-eye technology for every single match where the umpire review system is in place, they could use that money to pay a geek to invent a computer program that can analyse a bowler’s action during a match.
Surely technology is up to the point where a computer-aided television replay could gauge if a player is a chucker. Or just go old school and get the protractor out.
If this technology can be sought, it will erase doubts from people’s minds.
Whatever Muttiah Muralitharan does for the rest of his career, he will always be a suspected chucker in the eyes of many, despite what bio-mechanical testing showed.
I think his main action is okay. But it changes for his doosra, and there IS a question mark on that.
I’m sure Murali would love to prove once and for all that he’s not a chucker. And if he could be secretly tested in a match situation, which proves he is under 15-degrees, most Australians would finally regard him as one of the greatest spin bowlers.
It will be interesting to see what they do about Botha, if they do prove that he has been chucking a second time.
Will they give him another chance? Or will they say: “Sorry Johan, that arm is too bent, go and play baseball.”
If he is found guilty in the bio-mechanical testing, I would suspend him for life from cricket. Yes, it’s a bit harsh, but you have to make a stand.
At least Botha has been given a second chance. Ian Meckiff didn’t get any chances, and he didn’t have a computer to defend him.
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