And here we go again....

[Scallywag]

And since it can't, now what? Leave in the hands of the umpire? Sure thing. Of course we would just have to accept a lower degree of accuracy with the call. Now, suppose you were a very promising bowler who is thrown out of the game because your action 'looks' bad but actually isn't; then what?

Just what is your objection to results being analysed later when they can be more accurately determined?

What about your scenario, unless junior coaches and umpires are biomechanical engineers with technology gagets they wont be qualified to prepare the next generation.

It is people that put themselves above the sport and cant accept the umpires decision that destroy the sportsmanship that cricket was once known for.

 

[SJS]

No kidding, this assertion that if a technique can't be used in real-time it's useless is akin to saying that if a drug test can't be applied at the moment of a 100m race, it's useless.

Aside from the 'moral' objections, what's the problem with outside testing? Because I ain't seeing it, particularly since a more accurate result can be determined and to avoid a legal challenge, that's exactly what needed to occur.

In a drug test in athletics you can award the medal to the second placed. You cant decide that if Harbhajan threw at Calcultta (if there was a way to be sure of that) , award the match to Pakistan. In a team game like cricket. you cant calculate the damage to the other side and its exacxt impact on the outcome of the game.

An illegal delivery, or one which looks as if it might be illegal, must be cheked and called before the batsman starts walking back to the pavillion (if it gets him that is)

 

[Top_Cat]

As far as seeing tapes of Mckiff is concerned. Lots of people have seen them. This is the first time I am hearing that he didnt chuck. There was unanimity that he chucked. I dont kknow what the flex angle was. It is not relevant. He threw as you throw deliberately and that is a throw. When you throw from the deep you may take your toime and bend your elbow 90 degrees. On the pother hand you may throw on the run from close in and flex a few degrees only but if you are throwing you are thrpowing.

You say he threw, the umpires using their eyes and nothing more say the same but I was just expressing that I'd be interested to see what the newer technology and biomechanics guys would say.

Flexing of the elbow, irrespective of degree, is not synonymous with throwing any more.

Errr, what? Since when?

The damage may already have been done on the field of play. The delivery (found illegal 21 days later) may already7 have claimed wicket/s and a match may have been decided based on that.

How does one undo that damage ?

How does one compare that damage to the damage created by a player who challenges a ruling (and would likely have won had it occurred) under the previous laws because they didn't provide sufficient protections for the adminstrative bodies, umpires and ICC combined?

What about your scenario, unless junior coaches and umpires are biomechanical engineers with technology gagets they wont be qualified to prepare the next generation.

It is people that put themselves above the sport and cant accept the umpires decision that destroy the sportsmanship that cricket was once known for.

True but here you have an issue of whether any given junior organisation can afford said technology and experts. Obviously they can't so the players will have to just keep on playing until it's determined later accurately. Making the best of the situation. The facts remain that the ICC and international/domestic boards CAN afford it so SHOULD use it. Simple.

Sportsmanship is a quaint concept which is well and truly gone because the sport is professional so the laws have to reflect that.

 

[Top_Cat]

In a drug test in athletics you can award the medal to the second placed. You cant decide that if Harbhajan threw at Calcultta (if there was a way to be sure of that) , award the match to Pakistan. In a team game like cricket. you cant calculate the damage to the other side and its exacxt impact on the outcome of the game.

Now hang on, if real-time drugs tests weren't around (and they aren't) and there was no subsequent testing of the legality of an athlete (as you're effectively advocating for throwers in cricket i.e. if it can't be determined ont the field of play, it shouldn't happen), then the first place would stand, wouldn't it? Ergo, there's your 'damage' which cannot be undone.

 

[C_C]

The common error made everywhere AND on this forum is that the umpires HAVE to be 100 percent sure that a bowler chucks before they can call.

THIS WAS NOT THE LAW.

The law states(with ammendments from the ICC) that if there is more than 15 degrees flexion to the bowling arm once the arm has reached the horizontal shoulder level during the final delivery swing, it is a chuck.
By contradiction, it means if it does NOT, then it is NOT a chuck.
An umpire is technically allowed to call a bowler IF AND ONLY IF he chucks. Therefore, again, by logic, it dictates that the umpire MUST be 100% sure that the bowler chucks before he can call him.

The notion that he could call the bowler only if he 'thought' that the bowler chucked is erroneous and if practiced, was a technical violation of the rule.

As far as seeing tapes of Mckiff is concerned. Lots of people have seen them. This is the first time I am hearing that he didnt chuck. There was unanimity that he chucked.

Irrelevant, like i said.
In Meckiff's time, the notion was that the umpire IS qualified to make that determination.
In recent times, umpires have been proven PATENTLY incorrect with regards to accurately and correctly determine a chuck.
Therefore, what the people thought of Meckiff in Meckiff's time does NOT stand up to the modern day scrutiny.
This is akin to clumping things together, resulting from lack of knowledge....
100 years ago...anyone with any neurological disorder was automatically termed 'crazy'...however, in light to a deeper understanding of human physiology and psychology, several distinctions are made.
Since it is proven that umpires CANNOT TELL whether a bowler is hyperextending, using a lot of wrist(given that biomechanists are on record saying that hyper wrist-mobility can give the illusion of bending the elbow), any previous verdict on Meckiff is potentially refutable and imprecise.

On the pother hand you may throw on the run from close in and flex a few degrees only but if you are throwing you are thrpowing.

Then everyone is throwing and everyone has thrown because it is physically IMPOSSIBLE to maintain a perfect arm pose with zero flexion at the elbows while bowling.
That has been categorically proved and therefore there is no black and white with regards to chucking but a degree has to be agreed upon by logical and practical means- which is what the 15 degree rule is. Your implication that 'if you are throwing, you are throwing' renders every single bowler in history of cricket to be a chucker.

What has happened is that while earlier, bending of the elbow ever so slightly was considered as a must for throwing. All this committee has done is to show that there is some flexing (bending) even when NOT throwing. So the definition of throwing has changed.

no. what this committee has categorically shown (and backed up by biomechanical experts) is that the notion that 'people who dont throw dont straighten the arm even one bit' is patently incorrect and erroneous.
It has shown that every single bowler has a greater than zero flexion at the elbow while bowling- EVEN LEGSPINNERS- and therefore, by such a black and white rule, everyone is throwing.

Flexing of the elbow, irrespective of degree, is not synonymous with throwing any more.

As it should be. with greater technology comes greater scrutiny. Advocating against technology when one is sitting in front of one of mankind's iconic technological breakthroughs ( the computer) is patently hypocriticial and inconsistent.

That is why, it is even more important to let the umpires decide wheter the action is clean OR doubtful and thats all that was originally meant and thats all that is needed.

no it is not. Like i have said ample times and like TC has said, it is fundamentally irresponsible and callous to make such a focal decision in inadequate time, performed by unqualified people when a far better avenue exists.
That it was done before is irrelevant- as recent as 25 years ago, the umpiring eye was the most accurate guage. it no longer is, therefore it no longer can be considered as the modus operandi.

While the angle of flex is not possible to verify with the naked eye, a clean and a doubtful action can be separated by an onlooker. THAT IS WHY THE EARELIER SYSTEM WAS BETTER !

incorrect.
That is precisely why the earlier system was inferior. The newer system is more complex but also more logically, ethically and morally consistent.
You are gonna get stuffed with a few dozen lawsuits if you bar a person from his profession without being absolutely sure of violation of the EXACT law. doubtful action is NOT the benchmark for being noballed. An action that categorically breaks the chucking law is.
A doubtful action that uses a lot of wrist or has a permanent bend to the arm constitues as a doubtful action but it does NOT break any law of cricket. Therefore, barring a person due to that is unethical, negligence and gross incompetence. If you make this kind of decisions in real life executive scenarios, expect lawsuits galore.( note- the law says that you cannot FLEX your elbow...so if you got your arm at a 10 degree permanent flex or your arm is incapable of extending to the full normal range for the joint, you are NOT guilty of chucking).

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

True. But whether they are barred from a profession or not is determined by the competence and safety factor of the said profession. A bowler with hyperextension is no less competent than a bowler without hyperextension and doesnt posess a safety risk to himself or another.

I'm not talking about people with hyperextension - plenty of bowlers bowl legally in the minds of the umpire with hyperextension, as you said Akram and Ambrose were never questioned. dinu talked about "players with a deformity". If a player has a deformity that stops them from bowling a legal delivery in the mind of the umpire... they can't play cricket at top level. It seems pretty straightforward to me.

Catches and Lbws can be BETTER judged by technology than umpires.

We've had this argument before, and I disagree. All technology used thus far with regard to LBWs and catches is far too inconclusive to be used in test cricket. The umpire makes an immediate judgement about where the ball pitches with regard to the stumps, whether or not the batsman attempts to hit the ball, whether or not the batsman hits the ball, and whether or not the ball would have hit the stumps if it had not hit the pad. Each of these, excluding possibly the location the ball pitches (and even then plenty of replays leave a bit of doubt in this regard) is a subjective judgement and therefore cannot be made by a machine. An umpire uses not just what he has seen from technology but also his extensive experience watching, playing, learning about and umpiring cricket to determine what the ball might have done after hitting the pad... Hawkeye uses the prior trajectory of the ball. Even ignoring the conflicts with the spirit of the game, there is obviously a fairly simple argument about why the umpire is better able to make the call. Catches, as should be obvious to anyone who has seen many of the recent third umpire replays of disputed catches, are as often as not completely inconclusive on replay. The only time it can really be used is in a Roger Harper sort of example where the catch was clearly dropped and it was obvious to everyone on the field, but was claimed regardless and the player was between the umpire and the ball. The ICC's judgement is, not surprisingly, exactly the same and the umpire can only call on the replay in a similar situation to this now.

Also the average time for verdict is less than 10 seconds- that is an insignificant amount of time over the course of the entire match.

I've seen plenty take closer to 30 seconds, and keep in mind that it would take longer in this case because the umpire would have to actually call for it, and the third umpire would need to view it enough times to be certain. Regardless, whether it is 10 seconds or 30 seconds, do you honestly feel that it wouldn't reduce the quality of cricket to have a decision referred to the third umpire say 10-15 times in a session? I'd rather have the umpire make his immediate objective judgement and get on with it.

It is akin to advocating that a courtcase be decieded in a matter of seconds or minutes.

Completely daft comparison. A court case attempts to determine the truth about a series of events and reach a verdict with regard to a complaint. A cricket game is governed by the judgement of an umpire and nothing else, and what people miss in this issue is that originally there was no legal or illegal degree of flexion! It was simply a matter of whether or not the umpire believed you were "throwing" the ball... ie: not bowling in a legal fashion for a game of cricket. It doesn't matter if you bowl with 4 degrees, 12 degrees or 80 degrees of flexion, if the umpire does not believe you are bowling a legal cricket delivery he will call you for a no ball and you should attempt to make your action smoother.

The above condition can ONLY be seriously entertained if all past and present bowlers are put to scrutiny under QUALIFIED people and any instance of chucking in the past decreed as an expunging of the record/stripping of the win.
Since past chuckers have been allowed to keep their records despite being banned for chucking and result of the match remained unaffected, i see no reason why that is gonna be any different if harbhajan is found to be guilty of chucking.

No, you miss the direction of what I was saying. I am not saying that if found guilty Harbhajan's records should be expunged and the games he played should be stripped away from India... far from it. The difference is however that when, say, Meckiff was called for throwing he was given a no-ball... one run was added to the opposition total and he was forced to rebowl the ball. When Harbhajan, if he is found guilty, bowled his no-balls, nothing happened to him and he continued to bowl perhaps taking wickets with them and assisted his team to victory... and nothing was done DURING the match. Therfore, if he is found guilty, the Indian win and Harbhajans wickets in it will be tainted by the fact that he has been scientifically proven to have been cheating during the match. Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medals, remember? What happens here? The ICC have created a new situation by for the first time having a moment to moment decision about the legality of a delivery made weeks after the fact, and well after the completion of the match in which the no balls were considered legal.

 

[C_C]

How does one undo that damage ?

Like i said, no damage has been undone in the past and therefore, unless the past is gonna be put to right, no expunging should take place.
If the records ARE expunged, so should Meckiff's..... who's stand to this day.

What about your scenario, unless junior coaches and umpires are biomechanical engineers with technology gagets they wont be qualified to prepare the next generation.

irrelevant. Nobody said that juniors cricket need the exact same standards as the top level.
Hell, juniors cricket is NOT of the same standard currently- the umpires who stand theer are arguably NOT the best of the best, since the ICC elite panel is arguably ahead of the curve and significantly so.
Refer to north american sports which are gadget-heavy at the top level but is gadget-free at juniors level. There has been no problem whatsoever for people making that leap and therefore, it is stupid to think that cricketers will have the same problem.

An illegal delivery, or one which looks as if it might be illegal, must be cheked and called before the batsman starts walking back to the pavillion (if it gets him that is)

Like i said- your reasoning is flawed as you have not answered the points brought up by me and TC adequately...merely repeated your mantra ad nauseum without adding to the reasoning.

 

[SJS]

Now hang on, if real-time drugs tests weren't around (and they aren't) and there was no subsequent testing of the legality of an athlete (as you're effectively advocating for throwers in cricket i.e. if it can't be determined ont the field of play, it shouldn't happen), then the first place would stand, wouldn't it? Ergo, there's your 'damage' which cannot be undone.

I can answer both this and your earlier post but I can see this isnt getting anywhere. Hence I rest my case

 

[Top_Cat]

A cricket game is governed by the judgement of an umpire and nothing else, and what people miss in this issue is that originally there was no legal or illegal degree of flexion! It was simply a matter of whether or not the umpire believed you were "throwing" the ball... ie: not bowling in a legal fashion for a game of cricket. It doesn't matter if you bowl with 4 degrees, 12 degrees or 80 degrees of flexion, if the umpire does not believe you are bowling a legal cricket delivery he will call you for a no ball and you should attempt to make your action smoother.

And as C_C and I have been saying, this just isn't good enough anymore. Certainly not good enough to withstand a legal challenge from an aggrieved bowler (don't kid yourself - under the previous rules, it was only a matter of time).

I can answer both this and your earlier post but I can see this isnt getting anywhere. Hence I rest my case

Fine but as far as I'm concerned, barely any of my questions have been answered or contradicted. I won't lose sleep, though.

 

[SJS]

And as C_C and I have been saying, this just isn't good enough anymore. Certainly not good enough to withstand a legal challenge from an aggrieved bowler (don't kid yourself - under the previous rules, it was only a matter of time).



Fine but as far as I'm concerned, barely any of my questions have been answered or contradicted. I won't lose sleep, though.

It wasnt meant to make you lose sleep anyway

 

[C_C]

If a player has a deformity that stops them from bowling a legal delivery in the mind of the umpire... they can't play cricket at top level. It seems pretty straightforward to me

it isnt pretty straighforward to me but rather callous and traditionalistic without reason for me.
the murali saga alongwith Akhtar fracas has categorically proved that umpires CAN mistake classic hyperextension for chucking. The biomechanists are on record for saying that.
Therefore, what it appears to the umpire is not accurate and not relevant. He is NOT THE AUTHORITY IN THE FIELD OF BIOMECHANICS and neither does he have the proper equipment and dilligence to make that determination!

We've had this argument before, and I disagree. All technology used thus far with regard to LBWs and catches is far too inconclusive to be used in test cricket.

yes we've been there before and i've explained to you before that your disagreement lacks reasoning. I have said to you that accuracy and precision-wise, the hawkeye DOES BETTER than the umpires. That is categoric and irrefutable, as the margin of error for the hawkeye is less than that of the human eye for projections.

The umpire makes an immediate judgement about where the ball pitches with regard to the stumps, whether or not the batsman attempts to hit the ball, whether or not the batsman hits the ball, and whether or not the ball would have hit the stumps if it had not hit the pad. Each of these, excluding possibly the location the ball pitches (and even then plenty of replays leave a bit of doubt in this regard) is a subjective judgement and therefore cannot be made by a machine.

No it is not. It is a fairly straightforward judgement. machines are FAR more accurate and FAR better at predicting the path of a projectile than the human eye is. That is categorically proven and scientifically unchallenged.
Therefore, a machine has better projection skills to guage more accurately the projected trajectory of the ball than the human eye is. Again, that is categoric and irrefutable- you WILL NOT find a human, except perhaps some air force aces, who have an error rate of less than 1 millimetre dealing with projectiles travelling 22 yards with speeds of 60-99mph.

The simple laws of motion, newton's law, laws of projectile motion and laws of angular rotation can be applied to guage FAR more accurately than the human eye.

An umpire uses not just what he has seen from technology but also his extensive experience watching, playing, learning about and umpiring cricket to determine what the ball might have done after hitting the pad

Irrelevant. The human mind projects from learning and adaptation while a computer core uses quantum and precise numbers to calculate it. As a result, the computer doesnt need to learn inorder to produce a velocity-displacement chart or a time-displacement chart but the human mind does.
Your arguments are erroneous.

Hawkeye uses the prior trajectory of the ball.

So does the human eye and the umpires...the umpires arnt standing there with their eyes closed and opening them only at the point of impact, are they ? the prior trajectory is essential and fundamentally crucial in projecting the future trajectory.DUH!

Even ignoring the conflicts with the spirit of the game, there is obviously a fairly simple argument about why the umpire is better able to make the call.

when facts prove that they do not.
I dare ya to find a biomechanical engineer or even a physicist who will refute what i am saying.

atches, as should be obvious to anyone who has seen many of the recent third umpire replays of disputed catches, are as often as not completely inconclusive on replay

no but they are very conclusive with the snicko.

I've seen plenty take closer to 30 seconds, and keep in mind that it would take longer in this case because the umpire would have to actually call for it, and the third umpire would need to view it enough times to be certain.

the third umpire does NOT enter the picture here. All the umpire has to do is press a button and the hawkeye makes the determination and flashes a response that can be constructed with a few simple conditional loops in the programming language.

Regardless, whether it is 10 seconds or 30 seconds, do you honestly feel that it wouldn't reduce the quality of cricket to have a decision referred to the third umpire say 10-15 times in a session? I'd rather have the umpire make his immediate objective judgement and get on with it.

I honestly think it will raise the quality of cricket. it will facilitate far more accurate and utterly unbiassed responses.

A court case attempts to determine the truth about a series of events and reach a verdict with regard to a complaint.

as opposed to the whole chucking thing...which (is this a freudian slip ? ) doesnt attempt to determine the truth about the event. And this is being paper-pushed by some as a solution without consideration to the recklessness and stupidity this signifies.

A cricket game is governed by the judgement of an umpire and nothing else, and what people miss in this issue is that originally there was no legal or illegal degree of flexion! It was simply a matter of whether or not the umpire believed you were "throwing" the ball... ie: not bowling in a legal fashion for a game of cricket

I have answered this point numerous times in this thread and i wont go into the whole 9 yards again. I have explained WHY umpires were the authorities in the past and why they CANNOT BE total authorities today. I have explained that correctness and precision is a function of technology, not a fixed quantified notion.

The difference is however that when, say, Meckiff was called for throwing he was given a no-ball... one run was added to the opposition total and he was forced to rebowl the ball. When Harbhajan, if he is found guilty, bowled his no-balls, nothing happened to him and he continued to bowl perhaps taking wickets with them and assisted his team to victory... and nothing was done DURING the match.

irrelevant and inaccurate. Meckiff was not called every single time he bowled with his 'ungainly' action and therefore, he took wickets with a chuck or two.

 

[SJS]

says FRANK TYSON.

I foresee multiple difficulties in the human resources department. In the logistical area of making the ICC's recommendations on "Chucking" work, it appears that the governing body is presuming that biomechanics — especially those with a background and experience in cricket — grow on trees,

 

[C_C]

And Frank Tyson, as good a bowler he was, is suddenly worth quoting on THIS issue is because ????????

Do you quote Tendulkar's view on matter-antimatter theory ? Do you quote Lara on what he thinks about DNA splicing and mitochondrial code ? does Tyson have full understanding of the biomechanics at work here and what the governing factors here are ?

Who the hell is tyson to be commenting on a biomechanical issue and in one he has no theoretical or practical (unless he himself was a chucker) experience in ?

This is a classic case of starry-eyed groupie-ism.

 

[Top_Cat]

Particularly since I doubt he's right anyway - I would have thought there'd be plenty of human movement guys out there.

Plus, I don't think it should be a pre-requisite for them to have tons of cricket experience-knowledge, Realistically, this is a physical issue independent of cricket. If anything, experience in cricket might bias a biomechanisist when interpreting results.

 

[SJS]

Reactions from Australia

There were suggestions around the world that the ICC had yielded to pressure from the subcontinent to change the rules after biomechanical studies this year revealed Murali straightened his arm by up to 14 degrees when he bowled the doosra. Under current rules spinners can extend their arms to five degrees.

"It's a huge coincidence that Murali's doosra is 14 degrees, and I find it extraordinary that they could have been 200 per cent out the first time around."

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

I've been over most of this many times before, but I'd like to respond to these two things...

Therefore, what it appears to the umpire is not accurate and not relevant. He is NOT THE AUTHORITY IN THE FIELD OF BIOMECHANICS and neither does he have the proper equipment and dilligence to make that determination!

The umpire is an expert in cricket and what qualifies as a legal cricket delivery... this does not require expertise in bio-mechanics unless you put a rule in place which specifies an exact degree of flexion. No, the naked eye of an umpire cannot determine exactly if someone bowls with 15 degrees of flexion or not, the best he could do would be to have an educated guess, which might well be wrong. The umpire CAN however offer his own objective judgement about whether or not the bowler has deliverered a legal cricketing delivery... which is all that should be required. All this nonsense about whether or not umpires are experts in bio-mechanics is entirely irrelevant prior to the ridiculous ICC policy change.

no but they are very conclusive with the snicko.

The snicko is OFTEN completely inconclusive. I cannot count the number of times that it is difficult to tell if the ball hit the arm or the glove (Langer's dismissal in the recent test, anyone?), or the ball hit the bat or the pad first, or if the ball brushed the bat or not a split second before it hit the pad, and in fact even in the situations where it supposedly excels - determining if the ball caught the outside edge when playing away from the body and whether a noise was bat or pad based on the thickness of the lines - there is often inconclusive results. There was an example just the other day in the Australia-New Zealand test match in which a batsman took a big swing at a ball and it was given not out, and at first glance snicko appeared to say the umpire was wrong but upon closer, longer examination with the video it showed that the noise came from somewhere else when the ball was actually slightly past the bat.

God help cricket if snicko is brought in as an official method of measuring whether or not a batsman is out. It's a fun tool for commentators and nothing more.

 

[C_C]

Precisely TC - my university alone has 220 Biomechanics and Kinesiologist undergrad students....alongside about 50-70 grad/doctoral students....thats a small univeristy in CANADA......helll...add up the world and they are teeming all over the place.


As per the reactions you posted SJS, i think it is sensationalist, shyte-stirring and utterly irrelevant.
Who made that comment ? a biomechanist ? a kinesiologist ?
a person who knows wtf he/she is talkin about ?
Did you remind the person that according to the-then laws of flexion, mcGrath was a chucker too ?

interesting that you resort to sensationalism and opinions when confronted with logically consistent and superior functionality.

 

[SJS]

Counterpoint - Angus Fraser

What do Fred Trueman, Dennis Lillee, Curtly Ambrose, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, and Ian Botham - not to mention an old has-been called Angus Fraser - have in common? Apparently, we all spent our entire cricket careers breaking one of cricket's most fundamental laws: what constitutes a legal delivery. We were all, to use the language of the game, chuckers.

If the conclusion was a bit surreal, so were the surroundings when I came to it. I was sitting in a conference room at the Emirates Tower Hotel in Dubai. With me were five other former international cricketers - Michael Holding, Aravinda de Silva, Tim May, David Richardson and Tony Lewis - along with three boffins who are experts in biomechanics: Dr Marc Portus, Professor Bruce Elliott and Dr Paul Hurrion.

We had each been invited by the International Cricket Council to sit on a committee looking into the most contentious issue in the game today, that of illegal bowling actions. It was our job to make some sense of this controversial and complicated issue and make recommendations of what should be regarded as a legal delivery. On the screen in front of us we were watching the likes of Glenn McGrath, Shaun Pollock, Stephen Harmison and Allan Donald, and I have to say the first response of all six former players was one of admiration.

What could possibly be wrong with the actions of these wonderful bowlers? Each was high at the crease, and their arms appeared to be ramrod straight as they moved through the all-important 90-degree sector between the upper arm reaching horizontal and the moment of release. As we soon learned, there was quite a lot wrong.

Chucking, or throwing, has always been one of the most controversial issues in cricket. Traditionally, the laws stipulated that the bowling arm should not straighten - extend - while passing through the vital 90 degrees. And until technology allowed television cameras to highlight almost every movement of a bowler's arm, it was believed that most did not throw. Occasionally someone would be reported for chucking - Geoff Cope, Harold Rhodes and Ian Meckiff - but instances were rare.

But interest in the subject increased hugely in 1999 and 2000 when Muttiah Muralitharan, Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee were all reported by officials. Research followed, but the results startled everyone when the scientists showed there to be movement in the elbow of almost every bowler as his arm came over. This stung the ICC into action and levels of tolerance - acceptable levels of straightening - were introduced. These were set at five degrees for spinners, seven and a half for medium pacers, and 10 for fast bowlers.

However, while we watched the likes of McGrath, Pollock, Harmison and Donald, we quickly realised that the levels were far too low. All those bowlers possessed actions any youngster would be wise to copy, we thought, yet their bowling arms were nowhere near as straight as we anticipated. Sitting mesmerised, we listened to an expert in biomechanics state the results of his research. "On this delivery the bowler's arm has straightened by 11 degrees," Dr Portus said. "On this one it straightened by eight; and on this it was 10."

We looked at each other in disbelief. Holding asked me whether I could see 10 degrees of movement after one delivery? I shrugged my shoulders, shook my head and said: "No".

We were then taken from a match situation, where there can be a three- or four-degree chance of error in the readings - it is difficult to identify the exact centre of a player's shoulder, elbow and wrist when he is wearing a long-sleeved shirt - to the laboratory, where biomechanics is accurate to within one degree. Here a group of first-class bowlers bowled with their shirts off, and with their arms, shoulders and torso covered with strategically placed reflective markers.

Bowlers have to take one of these tests if they are reported by an official and they have to pass it to continue with their career. In a laboratory the cricketer is filmed from every angle and coaches with international experience are present to ensure that the bowler is performing at the same intensity as he does in a game. For a fast bowler this means that he has to bowl at 95 per cent of the speed he has recorded in a match.

One would have thought a near perfect analysis of a bowler's arm would clarify the situation. It did not. If anything it made life more confusing. It would be easy if the elbow of a bowler moved in just one plane. But it does not. Loose elbows, and there seem an awful lot in bowlers, allow the joint to hyper-extend - move backwards past 180 degrees - as well as adduct and abduct - move sideways. Once again we sat flabbergasted, watching a projector screen as the results of these tests were relayed to us.

After watching one bowler's action, and noticing that something was not quite right, we asked Dr Portus to explain what was going on? He said: "This bowler straightens his arm by 11 degrees, hyper-extends by seven degrees and adducts by eight." Scratching our heads, we all burst out laughing.

It is this sort of movement which makes the action of Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar appear far more suspect than it actually is. After a lengthy chat we decided it would be wrong to ban a bowler if his elbow hyper-extended, abducted or adducted. These are in voluntary movements, caused by the force of the arm as it comes over, and suspending a player for something like this - even though it gives him an advantage - would be hard to defend if the player took legal action.

Information on spin bowling was presented by Dr Hurrion, a scientist from England, who had been asked by the ICC to study his subject during September's Champions Trophy. The results again took us by surprise even though spinners generally kept their elbows straighter than pacemen. But they were still way above the five-degree level previously set by the ICC.

Harbhajan Singh, the Indian off-spinner, was found to have 12 degrees of movement in his elbow whilst Ashley Giles was around the five-degree mark. But the most remarkable fact was that Dr Hurrion's research found just one bowler who did not straighten his arm at all. Ramnaresh Sarwan's occasional leg-spin could hardly be described as front-line but the West Indian's right arm remained set at around 166/167 degrees throughout his action.

The bowling arms of most spinners are under less stress than the fast men, but it was agreed that the tolerance level should be the same for every type of bowler. To differentiate would over-complicate matters. For instance, which tolerance level would apply for a fast bowler bowling cutters - spinners.

We delayed the biggest decision until last but after a great deal of deliberation it was decided that an acceptable level of elbow extension for a bowler should be set at 15 degrees. Many will feel that by allowing this the ICC are legalising throwing. They are not. All the information and opinion collected, along with the fact that it is almost impossible to see the arm straighten with the naked eye until it reaches this angle, points to 15 degrees.

Policing it will be difficult, and this is why the ICC will occasionally send appointed bowling experts to matches to identify bowlers with suspected illegal actions. But there is little anyone can do about a bowler who throws in the odd delivery, which might have 20-25 degrees of extension. If he is reported, the chances are he will then be able to go back to his stock action and pass the laboratory test. Thankfully, these bowlers are rare and most honestly go about their business with an arm that is not and never will be straight

 

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Re: Snicko - the Snicko we see on TV and the real thing are pretty different. The real thing is far more accurate and relevant. The point is the waveforms for nicks compared to pad thumps are completely different so it's prettygood at differentiating between those but differentiating between a nick and when a bat just 'snicks' the ground in a foreward swing would be more problematic, I'd imagine.

 

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The umpire is an expert in cricket and what qualifies as a legal cricket delivery... this does not require expertise in bio-mechanics unless you put a rule in place which specifies an exact degree of flexion.

Incorrect. One has to be an expert in biomechanics inorder to accurately determine the governing factors to the phenomena and whether to attribute it to hyperextension, elbow flexion, hyper-tensile wrists etc.
Umpire is NOT qualified to make that judgement.

The umpire CAN however offer his own objective judgement about whether or not the bowler has deliverered a legal cricketing delivery... which is all that should be required.

Since the umpire is not the authority in biomechanics and since turning your arm over IS a biomenchanical aspect,to suggest that that is all that should be required is as ridiculous as saying a nurse's opinion on is all that should be required before an angioplasty or brain surgery.

The snicko is OFTEN completely inconclusive. I cannot count the number of times that it is difficult to tell if the ball hit the arm or the glove (Langer's dismissal in the recent test, anyone?), or the ball hit the bat or the pad first, or if the ball brushed the bat or not a split second before it hit the pad, and in fact even in the situations where it supposedly excels - determining if the ball caught the outside edge when playing away from the body and whether a noise was bat or pad based on the thickness of the lines - there is often inconclusive results.

That is interpretation error...not recordance error...the inconclusiveness of the snicko is primarily because you got idjits with no clue to its functionality operating it and idjits who cannot tell the difference between an aluminum on steel spike and bat on ground spike.
Even then, snicko alongside video replay is more conclusive than the umpire is.
The objective is NOT 100%...like i said before, you will NEVER get 100% accuracy and precision in ANYTHING, even the frickin electron microscope....the pertinient question is, is it better than the ump ? the answer is yes. Therefore, since its better, it should displace the umpire in that regard.