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Adam Gilchrist recently attacked Muralitharan’s bowling action in his autobiography, True Colours. Millions of Australian cricket fans nodded in agreement. However, I’ll stick my neck out and say I don’t believe he is a chucker. I believe he is a great bowler.
Muralitharan bowls with a bent arm action.
People who believe that Muralitharan chucks often judge by looking at a picture of Muralitharan bowling and then see a bent arm. Therefore he chucks.
But let’s then look at the rules of the game.
Definition of fair delivery, the arm from MCC
A ball is fairly delivered in respect of the arm if, once the bowler’s arm has reached the level of the shoulder in the delivery swing, the elbow joint is not straightened partially or completely from that point until the ball has left the hand. This definition shall not debar a bowler from flexing or rotating the wrist in the delivery swing.
The fact is that, in the laws of the game, there is nothing in there that says anything about bowling with a bent arm action. The problem is straightening that bent arm that causes the player to throw. For most people in the world, it is impossible to bowl with a bent arm action and not straighten it.
That’s why a bent arm is often the best indicator to tell if a person is chucking.
However, due to a birth deformity, Muralitharan can’t straighten his arm fully, causing him to bowl with a bent arm action and creating that ‘optical illusion’.
People then say, “doesn’t the testing show that Muralitharan chucks as he straighten his arm by 15 degrees?”
Now to the controversial 15 degree rule.
People seem to think that the rule was there to solely accommodate Muralitharan. The study actually shows that virtually all bowlers (99 percent of them) unintentionally straighten the elbow joints.
This study was done using footage of bowlers in the past and present, extensive bio-mechanical testing of random current first class and Test bowlers in the lab by Australian scientist in the University of Western Australia.
This has been checked by cricketing legends such as Michael Holding.
They conclude that virtually all bowlers chuck and they chuck to the same degree as Muralitharan. The difference is that Muralitharan’s action is more scrutinised due to his bent arm action, while other bowlers escape the scrutiny as they don’t have that physical deformity.
So how does Muralitharan spin the ball so much then?
It’s actually due to another deformity. He was born with a double jointed wrist, which allows him to be the first wrist-spinning off spinner in the history of the game.
It’s an irony that he was born with one physical deformity that helps him become one of the greatest spinners of the game, and born with another deformity that made so many people believe he is a chucker.
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