Rule changes good for cricket

[Rachael]

Buchanan supports bowling law-change
Wisden Cricinfo staff
November 13, 2004

John Buchanan, Australia's coach, feels that the change in the bowling laws could give bowlers greater variety, and this, in turn, would make batsmen play differently. The ICC's recent law-change for what constitutes a legal delivery had been criticised by past and present players, but Buchanan's positive assessment meant that the ICC had at least one of modern-day cricket's most influential figures on its side.

After comprehensive testing, the ICC recommended that bowlers could straighten their arm up to 15 degrees. Muttiah Muralitharan's doosra, a delivery that some reckoned explored that boundries of legality, was tested at 14 degrees earlier this year. Buchanan said that if Muralitharan's delivery, as well as others, was now permitted, it would add to the game.

"I believe it's exciting what Murali, Harbhajan and Shoaib, and whoever else that has been under investigation, what they do in their bowling," Buchanan said to AFP. "If bowlers can actually increase the variety of the type of deliveries they can bowl, then that's a good thing for the game, because that means batsmen have got to counter that with their own skills.

"It may mean that captains have got something else to work with. In a sense I think there's a real gain in it if it's handled correctly."

Policing bowlers has also been an issue raised by people with an interest in the game. Shane Warne recently asked, "I think it might [create confusion]. How does an umpire tell if it's 12 degrees, 10 degrees, nine, 13, 14, whatever it is when it happens like that?"

Tim May, a representative of the ICC panel that recommended that the law be changed, said that advanced technology and stricter guidelines would be put in place next year. He added that bowlers would have a fresh start with regards to reports for suspect actions.

© Wisden Cricinfo Ltd

[Mike]

Personally, I don't think there is any need to get emotional about this issue. There have been many rule changes in the history of the game and this change in this bowling law seems minor compared to an early law allowing overarm bowling when underarm bowling was the norm. Surely, those first overarm bowlers had a distinct advantage with steeper bounce. As long as cricket continues to be entertaining and provide a majority of results I see no problem. I'm actually intrigued whether medium to medium-fast bowlers will be able to use the new rule to develop a surprise quicker delivery as a change-up delivery in the way a quick bowlers uses a slower ball as a change-up delivery.

[Occasional Fan]

Michael Atherton in the Sunday Telegraph here.

[The Great DonTalon]

Rachel it is obvious to all and sundry that this is a fix ; a fix fixed so that most of the world's bowlers can continue to bowl as well as to clear MURI so he can play...despite the fact that they all think/knows that MURI chucks it they just as well knows that the cricket world is all the better with him in it.

I'm a leg spinner and lemme tel you that as long as you are a wrist spinner that elbom has to bend with the natural twist of the wrist joint .

I think that Shoiab Athkar should do some work where this in concerned...never have I seen a bowler try to bowl fast like he does at this level and take so long to actually learn how to bowl - he will sufer when his pace goes and is has begun to wane over the past 6-12 months.


If I were to say a lad chucks it would be him...he constantly bowls in long sleves to hide this fact. BY golly he must arc 20-30 degrees

[Occasional Fan]

Muralitharan calls Lee, McGrath and Gillespie chuckers. I decline to comment on this.

Report from the BBC here.

[Rachael]

Surely he's just making a statement of fact: the technical committee established beyond a shadow of a doubt that these guys technically "chucked".

The panel has established that most of the greats in the history of world cricket should probably have been banned.. leaving us with only the odd anomaly like Sarwan, who genuinely DOES bowl with his arm straight, as "genuine" bowlers (wouldn't that look good if they struck the rest from the record books for "cheating", leaving Sarwan to be hailed as the greatest ever :-) ).

McGrath is surely set to become an iconic figure in theis debate: the indisputable evidence that the man whose action looked purer than pure actually chucks was apparently the biggest shock of all to those who have seen the evidence for themselves.

I'm just glad Murali can now answer his critics and retort in unanswerable fashion to the Aussie ***** who have made his life hell this past few years.

[Occasional Fan]

Come, come, Rachael! Why on earth would he have singled out three people unless he were trying to make some obscure point (which I confess I haven't got)? As for answering his critics, I am far from convinced that the moving of the goalposts helps Muralitharan at all. The fact remains that Murali has a visibly strange action, whereas most of the others haven't. If we believe the "experts" who tell us that you can't see flexion with the naked eye until you pass a 15 degree line, then Murali has been flexing beyond the 15 degree mark on the pitch - otherwise the umpires wouldn't have seen it. He may have been measured at 14 degrees and 59 minutes in the laboratory, but it is behaviour on the pitch which will lead to no-balls. It will continue to be the case that people will be called when they flex beyond 15 degrees (or, to put it another way, when the umpires can see flexion). Murali will continue to be at risk; McGrath won't.

[Rachael]

You overlook the fact that when Murali wore a brace that kept his arm absolutely solid... every commentator agreed that it still looked as if he were flexing.

The one great positive to come out of all this fuss has been the way it has exposed the farcical inadequacy of the human eye as a means of judging these things: one guy bowls with a brace and looks as if he's chucking.. the next (say McGrath) bowls with an action that everyone hails as pure.. and is revealed to chuck.

Add in the fact that we've had suggestions that a certain, big name English bowler has apparently admitted that his deliveries turned into chucks when he really went for it... and the whole thing ends up being a right mess: better, I say, to just watch out for basebal pitching.. and let the bowlers gain all the advantage they can from doing what virtually every bowler in history has done before them.

Bottom line: cricket is better for having Murali, Shoaib Akhtar and the likes playing... and is certainly better for having Glen McGrath and Shaun Pollock playing: with what's been revealed of late... it's time to just focus on the joys of what they achieve, not groan about the way they do it.

[Occasional Fan]

There is only one problem in this, Rachael: the "farcical inadequacy" of the human eye is all that the umpire has. We can send all these bowlers off to the laboratory for as long as we like and as often as we like, but if the umpire sees a chuck (however we define it) he has to call it a no-ball. We have now been told that you can't see a chuck if there is less than 15 degrees of flexion: theoretically, therefore, anyone who has been called under the old interpretation of the Law is just as much at risk under the new interpretation. (The only thing that might save him would be increased timidity of the umpires, something which the ICC is in some danger of generating.)

Now we come to the special case of Murali again, a man who is so unlucky that he looks as though he's chucking even when braced. So, what the heck is the story here? We can only see a chuck if there's more than 15 degrees' flexion, but in the case of one man we get an inexplicable optical illusion? Sorry, I don't understand this. You (by which I mean not you, but the "experts") can't have it both ways.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Rachael

I'm just glad Murali can now answer his critics and retort in unanswerable fashion to the Aussie ***** who have made his life hell this past few years.

What's this Rach? This just proves that under the old rules (that's the rules I play to and have done since I first attempted to propel a ball in the direction of the stumps - not entirely successfully - with a straight arm, some 35 years ago) he did actually cheat.

Yes, he did. He flexed at fourteen degrees, which WAS breaking the law.

Muralitharan can now answer his critics by bowling legally within the new law. But as OF suggests, if the umpires "SEE" him throwing they will call him again, because supposedley he will then obviously be breaking the "NEW" laws.

Goodness me this is rubbish.

Buchanan, so I read, was musing (rubbing his hands with glee) at the thought of what bowlers might do now that the lines have been so stupidly blurred. It's a bit like the new offside law in Association Football.
Buchanan was practically openly implying that players would be encouraged to stretch the new law to it's limits.

Such things happen to your favourite games when the money men get involved.
Is technology taking the game forward? Yes it is... soon they'll be a pitcher's mound at each end of the wicket.

"Well gee guys, I keyant see the prahblm, John H Macy Junior can only bowl that way, and that's the way he's been doing it since before he left the World Series."

Perhaps we can give the cover and midwicket sweepers, catcher's mits. Afterall cricket balls are frightfully hard don't you know?

Perhaps when everyone's hitting the ball so hard we can slow it down like they did at Wimbledon!!! Might make it easier to catch. Though it will severely damage all the player's shoulders.

Before the law was changed umpires had already been berated (and forbidden) for calling "no-ball" for a throw.
Has that been revoked now?

With the information at their fingertips (or eyeballs) that they can only tell if it's a throw when the angle is over fifteen degrees... then presumably we will hear bowlers called much more often now.

Oh no no, of course that won't happen because everybody will keep well within the laws.

Why isn't there isn't a smiley face that is blowing a raspberry? This one isn't quite right.