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England quick Stuart Broad and former skipper Michael Vaughan have drawn focus to the legality of bowling actions after casting aspersions on the technique of Pakistan spinner Saeed Ajmal.
After Ajmal snared 13 wickets in Worcestershire’s recent win over Essex in county cricket, Vaughan tweeted a photo of the Pakistani in his delivery stride.
The grainy picture showed Ajmal’s arm bent at an extreme angle as he was about to deliver the ball from around the wicket to a right-handed batsman.
Next to the photo Vaughan wrote: “You are allowed 15 degrees of flex in your delivery swing…#justsaying”.
You are allowed 15 degrees of flex in your delivery swing…. #justsaying pic.twitter.com/GwtnIGzd6M
— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) May 21, 2014
As if Vaughan’s tweet wasn’t provocative enough, Broad replied to him with tweets that read, “This has to be a fake photo?” and “Bowlers can bowl very differently in a lab while being tested compared to needing wickets in the middle”.
Ajmal has undergone extensive testing of his action and it was found that he delivered the ball with less than the 15 degrees of elbow flex allowed under International Cricket Council regulations.
The off spinner understandably reacted angrily to the comments, and has demanded an explanation for Broad’s tweet from the England Cricket Board.
Debate will continue about Ajmal’s action until well after he is retired, as it will with Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan and West Indian mystery tweaker Sunil Narine.
But there is no doubting the effectiveness of these bowlers. Muralitharan is the greatest wicket-taker in the history of international cricket, while Ajmal and Narine are currently the two best limited-overs bowlers in the world.
Australia does not boast an unorthodox spinner in their mould. Is that a hindrance to the Aussies’ prospects in limited-overs cricket, particularly T20 where slow bowlers are the key?
The last spinner to experience sustained success in the shorter formats for Australia just happened to be an oddity in Brad Hogg. While Hogg’s action is textbook, his chinaman deliveries befuddled many batsmen who had rarely encountered such bowling.
Since Hogg’s glory days ended six years ago, Australia have unsuccessfully tried a string of orthodox spinners. Dan Cullen, Steve Smith, Nathan Hauritz, Xavier Doherty, Steve O’Keefe, Jason Krezja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Fawad Ahmed and James Muirhead have all been given a crack.
But none of them have the unknown factor that perturbs batsmen when they face the likes of Ajmal, Narine or Muralitharan. Even India’s Ravi Ashwin, although possessed of a purer action than that trio, has a curious delivery that breaks in the opposite direction.
When limited overs stroke-makers encounter those four bowlers, they are burdened by the uncertainty of which way the ball will turn.
With no mystery spinners on the horizon at domestic level Australia’s closest option is one of Muirhead or Ahmed, both of whom possess potent googlies.
The 20-year-old Muirhead appears the superior option given the leg spinner’s comparative youth and far greater room for improvement.
He has impressed in his five T20 outings for Australia and, despite being under-bowled at the recent World Cup, showed his class by taking the massive wickets of West Indian supremo Chris Gayle and Indian kingpin Virat Kohli.
Australia’s lack of spin menace was laid bare during that tournament. With the 2016 event to be held in India, it seems unlikely Australia will be able to triumph on expected spinning decks without a spinner who has a bag of tricks.
Their need to fast-track such a tweaker is less pressing in the 50-over format given next year’s World Cup will be held in Australia, where the home side’s pacemen should rule the roost on bouncy pitches.
But it seems clear that Australia cannot continue to field limited-overs sides with run-of-the-mill finger spinners. Nathan Lyon, perhaps, has the pedigree to buck the odds and succeed in the shorter formats with a classic action, a la retired England champion Graeme Swann.
Otherwise Australia need to select slow men who keep the batsman guessing. That does not mean they need to push the 15-degree rule. But a young Aussie Ajmal or Narine would not go astray.