I was truly astonished to see that one. I always thought that, inspite of the accepted fact that Murali had this genetic condition in his elbow, wrist etc but I thought he should not be allowed to get away with exploiting this defect. I was sure he was bending/flecxing at the elbow in his delivery. This brace had me thinking.
That does not, however, explain all the other doosra bowlers who do not have Murali's special problems (or blessings if you please) of his joints. With normal body you can not bowl a doosra without bending at the elbow. I would like someone to ask Shastri to do the same experiment with Harbhajan's elbow in a brace and then ask him to bowl the doosra.
What the 15 degree law does is it opens the way for all those like Harbjajan (and hundreds of youngster's in India and Pakistan) who are bowling what are clearly illegal in spirit of what the original law was all about.
I knew you though he chucked it, SJS. But I thought that only pertained to his doosra? Do you believe he chucks all his deliveries? If so, I find that a little odd, as certain posts you have made seem to suggest that you hold his bowling in high regard.
The second clip is a good one, and one I have seen before. However, it still does not address the possibility that Murali may now throw in test matches with virtual impunity - albeit, I think, without intending to do so (especially for instance towards the tail end of long spells or a lot of bowling or when looking for something extra when bowling on unhelpful surfaces). His action has changed over the years, for a while there, it was quite dirty and was more prone to looking bad when Murali was doing a decent amount of bowling. He did some remedial work on it and came back a better bowler for it - this was in the early 2000s IIRC.
I sort of agree with doubts concerning the doosra. Murali may be the only bowler able to pull it off, but even he, I think, skirts too close to the legal line in doing so, and some deliveries I have seen have been a little too dodgy for comfort. My other issue is that I think, in some ways, it made him a worse spin bowler. At times I have rationalised it with the thought that I dont mind fast bowlers working on the ball in this era of big bats, flat pitches, and shortened boundaries - but that remains a rationalisation, and not a very good one at that. Especially when one takes into account other young spin bowlers. I still havent made up my mind about that.
