Senanayake banned

[grecian]

yeah cos here's us defending his action.

The logical conclusion is that the action has gotten worse, not that the testing was somehow off first time round, the fact that you appear to trust your eyes more than the tests is also questionable

Nah you are defending his action from back then, and you did in the England-Lanka thread when many of us were saying it was awful, and lo and behold it turned out awful.

shall I do a laughing smilie to rather try to prove my brilliant opinion is great, whilst yours is silly and not just an opinion.

Oh and Harsh.ag I always have a grip, it rather centres me.

 

[Maximas]

If memory serves I was doing my usual thing and simply saying only testing proves what the eye might suspect, anyone can see his action looks dodgy, but the only actual evidence we had then was the previous test in 2011.

 

[harsh.ag]

Nah you are defending his action from back then, and you did in the England-Lanka thread when many of us were saying it was awful, and lo and behold it turned out awful.

shall I do a laughing smilie to rather try to prove my brilliant opinion is great, whilst yours is silly and not just an opinion.

Oh and Harsh.ag I always have a grip, it rather centres me.

His action did look bad, but most of us learnt not to trust our naked eyes while trying to figure these things out. That is where you and I differ. It looked really bad to me, but then so had Murali. Just because the first test did not find him guilty does not mean it was an inadequate test.

 

[hendrix]

Any precedent to that? Can't recall anyone having all their deliveries deemed illegal..

Isn't Shillingford allowed back but not to bowl his doosra, presume that is what Maximas means as Shillingford looks rubbish now without it.

Shillingford's offbreak and doosra were both deemed illegal. I honestly thought that would be the end of his career.
However, a few months later he'd done remedial work and got his offbreak cleared. And then he played test cricket.

Of course, he was completely in utterly ineffective.

 

[Furball]

Should expunge all of Sri Lanka's wins with him in the side from the record books. Absolute joke he was ever allowed to taint international cricket.

 

[smash84]

Should expunge all of Sri Lanka's wins with him in the side from the record books. Absolute joke he was ever allowed to taint international cricket.

What drivel. Not an iota of thought going into it like your usual fare

 

[YorksLanka]

Very disappointed as a SL fan with this verdict however it is what it is and so be it. I certainly defended him as (like the other SL fans here probably) i thought that his action was close to the limit but was OK.it has been proven that isn't the case. A lot if people are carrying on like all SL fans KNEW he was illegal but supported him anyway- way off the mark.

 

[Prince EWS]

Hopefully the positive we get out of this is more faith in the current testing and less calling out of people who have actually undergone testing and were cleared.

I agree, but the problem with this is that Senanayake actually had undergone testing and was cleared before this.. and I really don't think his action looks worse to the naked eye than it did after he was tested the first time.

Now don't get me wrong -- evidently it was worse. I'm not suggesting otherwise. The issue here is what the umpires are meant to do. If you think someone's action looks dodgy, you report them, they come back clean, then you umpire them again, what do you do if their action looks the same to you? I mean, logically it should look the same if the player has just been cleared, and reporting players ad infinitum that don't change their actions and repeatedly get cleared would be absolutely absurd. And yet, this case...

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

What we really need is something to monitor bowling actions during a match. There must be the technology to do it today. Wireless sensors on the arm, 'hawkeye' type footage of the arm. Maybe you don't check every delivery at this stage, but every bowler should be checked every game to ensure their actions haven't deteriorated and it shouldn't have to rely on a umpire having the guts to make the report.

 

[hendrix]

Now don't get me wrong -- evidently it was worse. I'm not suggesting otherwise. The issue here is what the umpires are meant to do. If you think someone's action looks dodgy, you report them, they come back clean, then you umpire them again, what do you do if their action looks the same to you? I mean, logically it should look the same if the player has just been cleared, and reporting players ad infinitum that don't change their actions and repeatedly get cleared would be absolutely absurd. And yet, this case...

Yeah this is an issue.

One could say that the reason he was reported this time is that the powers that be had noticed a change in his action.

However, I don't know if the match referee is that highly qualified to be able to make that call. It might just have been blind luck, which is not good enough.

 

[Prince EWS]

Yeah, I've got no problem with the actual testing process, per se. I've got issues with which bowlers get sent for testing and when, though. It seems pretty arbitrary.

If someone's action looks dodgy but it's found to be clean, so they don't change it, it's still going to look dodgy when they return. It's not fair for umpires to keep reporting the same bloke over and over again when he doesn't actually change his action, but on the other hand Senanayake's action has got worse after being tested without actually looking worse.

Should we test every international bowler once a year? That doesn't seem like a wise use of funds. We could re-test everyone who has been reported before once a year, but that seems pretty unfair on players with clean but unorthodox actions, and again I could think of more worthwhile things to spend ICC funds on.

 

[Teja.]

I agree, but the problem with this is that Senanayake actually had undergone testing and was cleared before this.. and I really don't think his action looks worse to the naked eye than it did after he was tested the first time.

Now don't get me wrong -- evidently it was worse. I'm not suggesting otherwise. The issue here is what the umpires are meant to do. If you think someone's action looks dodgy, you report them, they come back clean, then you umpire them again, what do you do if their action looks the same to you? I mean, logically it should look the same if the player has just been cleared, and reporting players ad infinitum that don't change their actions and repeatedly get cleared would be absolutely absurd. And yet, this case...

Yeah I had this concern at the back of my mind. The problem here is that the way an umpire's mind is attuned to calling a chuck and the actual technical violation of the 15 degree rule are things which have a lot of overlap but are not nearly as co-related as they need to be due to the failings of the naked eye and therefore with status quo this remains a problem.

That's not to say I agree with a system of umpires just making judgement calls on dodgy actions either. I think the solution lies firmly in in-game technology (as Heef suggested too) which can ideally be done like how the current revs calculation works but more realistically at least the ability to replay deliveries in slow-mo and check for the flex. Not too excited about actual devices on the arm though.

I still reckon this is a step forward. We now know that testing is not just a joke formality and people can actually get banned if they don't follow the rules. However, we obviously have a fair way to go before we arrive at a pleasant solution.

 

[hendrix]

Should we test every international bowler once a year? That doesn't seem like a wise use of funds. We could re-test everyone who has been reported before once a year, but that seems pretty unfair on players with clean but unorthodox actions, and again I could think of more worthwhile things to spend ICC funds on.

Agreed that there's better use of funding. I think this is what they're looking at:

In order to help bowlers correct their flawed actions, the ICC tied up with a consortium of Australian cricket, sports science and sports engineering institutions in 2012 to develop wearable sensor technology that would allow the legality of bowlers' actions to be assessed during matches and training sessions. The ICC revealed that the technology was tested on 70 players in training sessions during the Under-19 World Cup held in UAE earlier this year.

"The results of the trials were very encouraging, with the final stage of the project expected to conclude in 2016," the ICC's release said, without elaborating on any details of the findings.

 

[Prince EWS]

Yeah, that would be great obviously. I just have no idea how accurate or costly it'd be.

 

[Blocky]

"His action deteriorated" - or he realised that a wonky action gave him more ability to turn the ball and offered new variations.

It's happening too much in cricket for me to believe these guys just naturally fall away in their action. They're probably testing the very limits of what they're doing each time they play to try and gain some advantage.

 

[watson]

What we really need is something to monitor bowling actions during a match. There must be the technology to do it today. Wireless sensors on the arm, 'hawkeye' type footage of the arm. Maybe you don't check every delivery at this stage, but every bowler should be checked every game to ensure their actions haven't deteriorated and it shouldn't have to rely on a umpire having the guts to make the report.

Yeah, I can't imagine that a side-on super slowmo camera would be difficult to setup during a match. If the field Umpire suspects the bowler of chucking then he can refer the delivery to the third Umpire at any given time. 'Three strikes' and the bowler is prohibited from bowling again in the match.

The team's administration can then make the decision as to whether they want to take the risk and keep playing the bowler for future matches. I suspect that the team's administration will eventually either fix the bowler's action, or drop the bowler completely as a team can't win a series of any description by continually being a bowler short during a match.

Also, I don't understand why the relevant law has a 15 degree tolerance in the bending of the arm? Either the arm is straight or it isn't, and if you can't physically straighten your arm for some reason then don't take up bowling in the first place. Become a batsman instead.

 

[Prince EWS]

Also, I don't understand why the relevant law has a 15 degree tolerance in the bending of the arm? Either the arm is straight or it isn't, and if you can't physically straighten your arm for some reason then don't take up bowling in the first place. Become a batsman instead.

This post really shows tremendous ignorance; the second part of your post in particular. Bowling with your arm bent at any angle is perfectly legal. The illegal part -- what makes it a throw -- is straightening your arm from a bent position. So if you can't straighten your arm then becoming a bowler makes perfect sense.

As for the rest of your post: removing any margin for straightening would make everyone a chucker. This isn't even part of the Sarwan "conspiracy"; there's just no way anyone would be able to have completely no flex.

 

[Daemon]

Should there be a harsher ban on players who fail the tests?

Some sort of penalty could be enforced, but only if the player was reported by the match referee, so the onus would be on the boards to send their players to get tested regularly or risk losing them for extended periods.

 

[Prince EWS]

Should there be a harsher ban on players who fail the tests?

Some sort of penalty could be enforced, but only if the player was reported by the match referee, so the onus would be on the boards to send their players to get tested regularly or risk losing them for extended periods.

Not a bad idea.

 

[Daemon]

Yeah, I can't imagine that a side-on super slowmo camera would be difficult to setup during a match. If the field Umpire suspects the bowler of chucking then he can refer the delivery to the third Umpire at any given time. 'Three strikes' and the bowler is prohibited from bowling again in the match.

Also, I don't understand why the relevant law has a 15 degree tolerance in the bending of the arm? Either the arm is straight or it isn't, and if you can't physically straighten your arm for some reason then don't take up bowling in the first place. Become a batsman instead.

I had no idea this was possible. A post with literally 0% understanding of the subject.