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Opinion
We’ve had only two days of Test cricket this summer, but already we’ve had two demonstrations of why the no-ball rule needs to be overhauled.
On Thursday it was Mohammad Rizwan’s controversial dismissal when everybody – everybody, that is, except the third umpire – judged Pat Cummins to have overstepped the crease.
On Friday it was the less controversial but not unimportant non-dismissal of David Warner when Naseem Shah was shown to have no-balled.
If the rule isn’t changed, bowling coaches need to re-evaluate how they tutor their fast bowlers. Probably we need both solutions to this growing problem.
The tactic of trying to get an advantage by attempting to gain every millimetre to shorten the distance between batsman and bowler is of such negligible value that you would have to wonder why it’s worth risking infringing and being judged to have bowled an illegal delivery and have a wicket disallowed in the process, as Shah found out on Friday. To make matters worse, it would have been the 16-year-old’s first.
I believe the technique was developed by Dennis Lillee. Far be it from me to criticise the great man, but he was one of the few with the skill and technical perfection to consistently get away with it. Having said that, it would be interesting to see how he would go in today’s environment, where every wicket is checked for infringements.
Whispering Death, Michael Holding, was no slouch with ball in hand and never bowled a front-foot no-ball. His front foot was always a foot behind the crease.
Ian Botham, I believe, was given one. I don’t know where he put his front foot, but I reckon it would be a safe bet to say it was well behind the crease. And so should everyone else’s.
If the rule isn’t changed, the coaching manuals must be.
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