ICC crackdown hurting competitiveness

Monday, 5 October 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

LAST week Tharindu Kaushal was banned by the International Cricket Council (ICC) from bowling his ‘doosra’ variation in international cricket. While his off-break was within the 15-degree level of tolerance, half the doosras Kaushal bowled at the ICC-accredited testing facility in Chennai were found to have been beyond the 15-degree limit.

The Sri Lankan off-spinner’s ban is the latest in a long list of spin bowlers handed varying bans by the ICC over the last year after they were deemed to have had illegal bowling actions. Among the more high profile instances are Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal, who was outright banned from bowling in international cricket; Sri Lanka’s Sachitra Senanayake, who like his compatriot was banned from bowling his doosra variant; and West Indies’ Sunil Narine, who was banned from bowling off-breaks.

These bans were all part of a renewed ICC crackdown on suspect bowling actions. And depending on who you ask, the measures are either long overdue or a witch-hunt against those who refuse to tow the orthodox line.

Wherever your allegiances may lie, it is clear questions remain over the veracity of the testing process itself. As it currently stands all bowlers are required to bowl within a 15-degree flex of their elbow, a limit based on the fact that a flex beyond 15 degrees is supposedly the point at which it would be visible to the naked eye. This is what is commonly known as ‘chucking’.

In cricket’s early days it became clear that chucking posed a safety risk to batsman; back then competitive advantage was derived by bowling faster than the rest, with doosras and googlies barely a pipe dream. What, though, is the risk posed by a spinner bending their arm beyond, an arguably, arbitrary limit?

For a long time in cricket’s history the flex limit on an elbow was 10 degrees, but in the mid-2000s it was deemed too strict as even some leading fast bowlers – let alone spinners – could not conform to it. This was when it was shifted to 15 degrees, making Sri Lanka’s legendary spinner Muttiah Muralitharan’s deliveries legal, much to the chagrin of many a doubter.

Therefore, if the law could be changed then, why not now? Would it not be more competitive for the sport if these bowlers were allowed to ply their trade to their fullest capacity? Especially in the modern game, which is evermore favouring the batsman? Is that not why the law was changed in the first place?

And if it is deemed that these bowlers are gaining an unfair competitive advantage by extending their elbows beyond the legal limit why is there not, in the interest of fairness, a drive for all international bowlers to be tested at an ICC-accredited facility? This would also enable us to get a clearer idea of how ‘close to the line’ some bowlers get; after all, half of Kaushal’s doosras were bowled with a 12-degree flex, which is perfectly legal.

Could it not be in the realm of possibility that there are bowlers out there who only occasionally, albeit unintentionally, cross the legal threshold but are not called for chucking? Would not the fairest course of action be that everyone be held to the same standards, and that these standards are made transparent and held up to public scrutiny?

Until these concerns are formally addressed, any lingering doubts about witch-hunts and the like will cease to go away. And the sport will be worse for it.