Darrel Hair no balls Murali (Photo credit : smh.com.au)
In Sydney Morning Herald, former spinner Ashley Mallet had written a scathing
attack supporting Darrel Hair. Pakistan's
Saeed Ajmal was recently tested by the accredited team of human movement
specialists at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane and their analysis found
that all of Ajmal's deliveries far exceeded the 15-degree level of tolerance.
In fact, some of his deliveries were more than double the tolerated degree of
flex. Ajmal's action has been pretty much the same from the day he first set
foot on the Test stage. He's taken a hefty 178 wickets in just 35 Tests at an
average of 28.10. Should he be stripped of all those wickets? In a just cricket
world, that would happen. Ajmal's chucking should have been pulled up long ago,
but the authorities turned a blind eye.
“There appears to be a new vigour and will within
the ICC to stamp out throwing, but the best way to gather evidence will come to
pass when we get the technology to test all bowlers under playing conditions. When
that day comes, I suspect we will have a whole bunch of so-called elite
off-spinners announcing their retirement. All cricket followers want the
umpires to clamp down on chucking. Cricket Australia could do no better than
bringing in Hair to advise umpires. Hair was fearless in his dealings with
bowlers with suspect actions. Hopefully our umpires are prepared to take on the
chuckers Down Under this summer.” – wrote Ashley Mallett who played 38 Tests taking 132 wickets.
It would also be fair to recall what Muttiah Muralitharan wrote in The
Age in 2004 - when he claimed that three
of Australia's leading pacemen were bowling with illegal actions. It was Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie who according to Murali were flexing their arms beyond the legal limit. Under the applicable laws, fast bowlers may
flex their arms by 10 degrees just before delivery. Murali had asked - "McGrath is bowling
about 13 (degrees), Gillespie about 12 and Brett Lee about 14 or 15, so what
about them then, the Australian players?" . Murali expressed that he had been subject to
unfair scrutiny throughout his career because other cricket nations were jealous
of his achievements.
After much water flowed
down, Darren Lehmann played a master stroke in bringing in Murali to bowl to
and advise Aussie batsmen before the two-Test campaign against Pakistan on
spin-friendly wickets in the United Arab Emirates. To conclude, it was way back in 1963-64 Series
that Australian fast bowler Ian Meckiff was called for throwing by umpire Col
Egar. Egar had no response to Meckiff's first ball but then shattered the
convivial atmosphere of a sun-drenched Saturday afternoon by calling no ball to
the second, third, fifth and ninth deliveries.
He reportedly later privately claimed that eight of Meckiff's 12 balls
were illegal "but if I had called them all he would never have finished
the over". With the crowd in uproar, Richie Benaud, captaining Australia
for the last time, told Meckiff he was not prepared to bowl him again. Left-armer
Meckiff never played the game again.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
6th Oct 2o14.
