Paul Lewis: Murali stumps cricket

COMMENT

All hail to the brave souls of the International Cricket Conference - the men who have re-invented their game to suit one player.

Yes, folks, after years of being left in a spin by the controversy surrounding Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan ("Murali"), the ICC have deduced that 99 per cent of all bowlers in history have probably been chuckers.

How's that? Special cameras filming at 250 frames a second (TV cameras film at 25 frames a second) dissected bowlers' actions. The result - nearly all bowlers have illegal actions, even paragons with supposedly model actions, like Australia's Glenn McGrath and South Africa's Shaun Pollock. The ICC is saying that only 1 in 100 bowlers comply with present law.

Sorry, but this is just bunkum. It's an apologist manoeuvre designed to let the vexed issue of Murali slide into a grey area of confusion and obfuscation. The ICC are effectively saying that pretty much everybody transgresses the law so Murali's okay.

That's like saying that a forward pass in rugby is permissible because other people have thrown them from time to time. It's like saying that a truck belching clouds of noxious diesel is not at fault because ordinary commuter cars also produce emissions.

The ICC are saying that even bastions of bowling like McGrath and Pollock can occasionally crook the arm, by as much as 12 degrees. The guidelines for the "straight arm" law previously decreed that the arm must not go past 10 degrees from straight for a fast bowler, 7.5 degrees for a medium-pacer and 5 degrees for a spinner.

Now they are extending all limits to 15 degrees, no matter what the pace or style of bowler. They say this is because it is only at 15 degrees that the human eye can detect a dodgy action. So a spinner now has 10 degrees extra leeway when it comes to a straight arm. Does this sound like a strategy yet?

Under the new laws, umpires will report those with suspicious actions and a new international body will work with the bowler and will have the power to fail him for up to two years if remedial work is not successful.

Door. Horse. Bolted. Do not be deceived. This is all about Murali, who is dicing with Australia's Shane Warne as cricket's leading wicket-taker. The 15-degree limit lets Murali off the hook but not as much as it gets the ICC off the hook. The ruling means that Murali is once again allowed to bowl his famed doosra - the leg-spinner delivered with an off-spin action.

No less a judge than Pakistan's famed leg-spinner and captain Mushtaq Mohammed said of the doosra: "The ball, which leaves right-handed batsmen, cannot be bowled without jerking or straightening the arm. You just cannot bowl that ball with an off-spinner's grip."

TV host and cricket commentator Michael Parkinson, writing in the Daily Telegraph earlier this year recalled the words of Indian spin great Bishen Bedi who said, when asked whether Warne or Murali was the better bowler, "Shane Warne is a great bowler." Of Murali, Bedi said: "Let him start bowling first."

Parkinson said: "At best, his action is suspicious. At worst, it belongs in a darts tournament. Sri Lanka believe the bowler was cleared because the ICC accepted evidence that he was born with a permanently bent arm. This does not clear him. It only proves he bowls with a bent arm."

The ICC cannot have it both ways. They will not let technology intrude upon their game to the extent that TV replays can assist umpires give decisions. But they are happy to re-write the interpretation of the laws so that technology can sweep under the carpet the vexed issue of Murali. They can't un-write his records now but they can change the book.

In doing so, they would rather blacken the names of bowlers like McGrath and Pollock - even though most cricket purists will know that these players have done nothing wrong.

The answer is to leave the power in the hands of the umpires. If we trust them to give lbw decisions - and to get some of them wrong - then we must leave them with the power to call chuckers as well. The politicians of the game of cricket have sacrificed umpires on the altar of Murali.

Parkinson again: "Cheating is now part of cricket. It's official. That is how bad things really are." The new ICC view of chucking - 15 degrees and all - does nothing to change that view and a great deal to ratify it.