But every professional athlete has an unfair advantage of some sort. Viv Richards had amazing hand eye coordination that I lack, and maybe he had that attribute that was by far and ahead of everyone else.
Is that unfair and should he be banned?
As Kazoholic pointed out, perhaps that's not the best analogy. I still think it's valid, though -- where do you draw the line between "natural capabilities" and "freakish mutation"?
I don't know how many of you lot follow cycling, but many will have heard of Miguel Indurain, "Big Mig", who absolutely dominated the Tour de France for half a decade or so. He did so with the aid of an abnormally large heart and lungs.
His heart is estimated to be 50% larger than the average bloke's, with a resting pulse of 30bpm (beats per minute) -- the average man hits 70bpm. His lung capacity is something like 8 litres, way above the average 5-6.
Some of that's down to fitness, but even the fittest average bloke can only go up to a certain level.
It turns out that most Tour riders have larger than average hearts and lung capacities, but the likes of Indurain are true freaks.
So, is that an unfair advantage?
The same with basketball -- if you're 7'6", you're going to have an advantage. Part of cricket's beauty is that it's so much more a game of skill (both mental and physical) than athletism or other physical characteristics.
Personally, I don't think Murali chucks...not more than the ICC-decreed 15 degrees of straightening, anyway. And don't get started on the "even one degree is chucking" stuff -- I don't think anyone on here is foolish enough for that one, anyway.
I do think that Murali's elbow deformity gives him an advantage, though. Perhaps it, and the ensuing optical illusion, makes his action harder to pick.
Perhaps the fact that he has, in effect, a shortened arm (as measured in a straight line from shoulder to wrist) allows him to rotate it faster while maintaining consistency and wrist movement (Murali's arm speed is up there with the quickest pacemen).
Perhaps it allows his wrist to operate on a different plane of rotation, allowing him to turn the ball squarer than others. Or something like that.
Going back to the freak thing, someone said about that a three-legged man shouldn't be allowed to run in the Olympics. Well, why not? He would have been born with the extra leg. Genetically engineering the third leg would be a different matter, as is that South African amputee with the prosthetic shins (that allow him to run very very fast with mechanical aid).
The fact is that the vastly overwhelming majority of mutations are not advantageous. My hyperextension and double-jointedness (very common in us Sri Lankans) mean that I suffer from plenty of joint pain and sprains (and still can't bowl
). I have plenty of friends who are short, slow, slight or just plain clumsy*, none of whom would ever make it in a truly athletic discipline...but I can only think of one or two whose 'deformities' have helped them in sports. I'm not talking a few inches in height here, mind.
* I'm not suggesting that some people are just born clumsy -- there's always nature vs. nurture -- but I do think there's a degree of genetic predisposition.
