IS cricket a gentleman's game or a mean machine's? The ICC sub-committee's solution perhaps leans towards the latter. How could a bowler possibly know whether there is a kink in his action without the use of technology? How could an aspiring youngster, who is not sound financially, afford such a thing? It is astounding that tradition is giving way to appliances of science. The recommendations should have been simple, well, maybe something like this: During the last leap of delivery of the ball, the bowling hand must make a smooth rotation. If one's bowling hand does not make a smooth rotation, then it is obvious that he is chucking, because, a smooth rotation is one of the main differences between bowling and throwing/ chucking/ jerking.
Those with suspect actions should be given a certain time period for modifying their action by doing the simple analysis of rotation. Laying appropriate rules and sticking to this analysis at the grassroot level will prevent such controversies from happening. Last but not the least, imagine what will happen if a person's walk is subjected to a biomedical analysis.
There is a probability that the findings conclude that 99 per cent of the people jump rather than walk! Sounds ridiculous? Well the ICC has just taken a big step in that direction.
R. Veeraraagavan, ChennaiIT'S clear from the history of cricket that bowling has gone through an evolution from underarm bowling to overarm bowling. And now it appears that the bowling is in for another evolution with overarm bend bowling being the latest suggested bowling style.
The ICC, instead of finding a solution to the ever increasing problem of illegal bowling action, is increasing the problem by stating that 99 per cent of the bowlers chuck and the bowling rules require to be changed. Certainly if its suggestion of having 15 degrees as the maximum limit of arm-bend is implemented then every batsman will face pretty fast bouncers from Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar and even from Muttiah Muralitharan. All the batsmen will be hapless and helpless even if they have protective cricket gadgets all over their body!
P. Krishna, Chennai
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