Chucked Out

After years of leniency, the ICC has finally launched a crackdown on bowlers with suspicious actions

The modern offspinner, it appears, prefers full sleeves even if it is cumbersome to bowl in them on a tiring hot day in the Subcontinent. But almost all offspinners in international cricket have arms fully-clothed on the field. This has nothing to do with style or convenience. Its sole purpose is to camouflage an old affliction that haunted some bowlers in the past, but now seem to be present with every modern offspinner— the bent elbow. For several years, the International Cricket Council (ICC) had looked the other way, as bowlers— especially offspinners—with suspicious actions proliferated and even excelled. What links offspinners to this condition more than others is the wide variety of deliveries that they now bowl. They do not possess clean classical actions, where the emphasis is on guile and flight. It is now about variety—the stock ball that spins in, the doosra that goes away, the fast ball that hurries the batsman. The argument supporting such bowlers ranges from allowing some evenness to a game that is increasingly in favour of batsmen to how the game would become poorer with the absence of special balls like the doosra.

But now the ICC has launched an unprecedented crackdown on bowlers with suspicious actions. In the last month or so, a number of offspinners, including those at the top of their game, have been banned or reported for chucking. The list includes Saeed Ajmal (Pakistan), the highest wicket-taker across all formats in the last three years; his compatriot, Mohammad Hafeez; Sunil Narine (West Indies), one of the best slower bowlers in limited overs’ Cricket; Sachithra Senanayake (Sri Lanka); Kane Williamson (New Zealand); Prosper Utseya (Zimbabwe) and Sohag Gazi (Bangladesh). A number of other offspinners were also reported in the recent Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20) tournament. This crackdown has resulted in various conspiracy theories. Some suggest that with the World Cup months away, this is a ploy to weaken strong bowling units like Pakistan. Others point out how no player from the three most powerful nations at the ICC—India, Australia and England— has been reported. Some even point out that Narine was reported just days before the final of the CLT20 tournament, played against the Chennai Super Kings, the franchisee owned by the ICC head N Srinivasan.

Whatever the reason for the timing of the crackdown, a cleanup has been long overdue. The ICC had revamped its old rules—which permitted slow bowlers to straighten their arms from a bent position by five degrees, medium-fast bowlers by seven-and-a-half degrees, and fast bowlers by 10 degrees—in 2004 to allow all bowlers to straighten their arms by up to 15 degrees, suspiciously at the time when the very successful Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan, and especially his doosra delivery, was facing a lot of heat. This decision to allow greater ‘tolerance’ has led to a situation—maybe encouraged, even—where bowlers with suspicious actions abound on every cricket field. Deliveries like the doosra and bowling actions like Muralitharan’s are hardly rare anymore. Ajmal was found bending his elbow while bowling by up to 43 degrees. Earlier this year, the Indian offspinner R Ashwin, who does not possess a doosra and always bowls in half sleeves, turned up in a match against Bangladesh in full sleeves. When later asked about it, he said, “I just wanted to see if you can get more revs on the ball, if you can do a little bit with your elbow… You can get a lot of advantage with these things. So why should I lag behind if someone else is getting a competitive edge?” Thankfully, the ICC has now decided to check this.

About The Author

Lhendup G Bhutia

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