Hafeez fails unofficial bowling test

[smash84]

Well, I thought Hafeez should have been able to sort his action out. Apparently not

Pakistan Cricket News: Mohammad Hafeez fails unofficial bowling test | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[Migara]

Average extension of 16 degrees. huh! Let's ask umpires to call which is illegal / dodgy and which is not by looking at films. Then we can have a good idea on how "useful" is the reporting procedure. My guess is prurist will be in for a rude shock.

 

[Daemon]

what's not shocking is you bringing up this same point a dozen times a week

 

[Migara]

Was waiting to bring this up till some one comes between 15-20.

Ideally should have let him play as an experiment and see how the process goes. His worst was 19 degrees only, so very good study material for the task in hand.

 

[GotSpin]

Or just not let him play?

 

[Migara]

The 15 degree limit is highly arbitary given that the limit was set using a different technology compared to current one. So letting few of those fring bowlers to bowl and figure out the results or test randomly and to establish new cutoff levels (which may be identical, but we don't know) would be the way forward. It is hihly debious since all the bowlers who are reported have extensions >25degrees. No one is below 25 when tested. The chances are that some normal looking actions may be going over 15 degrees. If that is the case a new level of tolerance has to be defined, or everybody has to be tested randomly.

 

[Goughy]

He doesnt have the worst action I have ever seen but the only real solution is for the boards to get heavily fined each time a player they select is reported and found to to have an action which isnt compliant.

It isnt just the fault of the player but also of those who selected him. I would hope people in these positions would be able to recognise a chucker but I am probably being far too optimistic.

 

[Niall]

Oh dear. If not fixed for the World Cup. its Afridi or Malik in the top seven.

 

[andmark]

Was waiting to bring this up till some one comes between 15-20.

Ideally should have let him play as an experiment and see how the process goes. His worst was 19 degrees only, so very good study material for the task in hand.

You don't want a cricket match where someone maybe playing for their career being played purely as an experiment.

 

[Migara]

You don't want a cricket match where someone maybe playing for their career being played purely as an experiment.

But lit's lot better than not playing at all.

 

[smash84]

Actually with an average over the wicket flex of 16 degrees that is cutting it extremely close. I would like to see most other bowlers being checked as well. A lot of Hafeez deliveries seemed fine too (its not as if all his deliveries looked crooked). I wouldn't be surprised to see the likes of Dale Steyn crossing 15 degrees in a fair number of his deliveries.

 

[andmark]

But lit's lot better than not playing at all.

But what if he got a wicket with everyone knowing there's a genuine chance that the bowl was a chuck- or worst case scenario he gets someone out who's playing for their career? Is the batsman immediately reprieved, but even then it would be in selectors' minds. it would be ridiculously controversial. And why can't it just be a thing of an umpire and cameras watching him bowl instead of a match?

And then if was to be allowed to play in a match for experimentation, then where does that leave the intergrity of the rules? There's no rule allowing banned players to play for experimental reasons and so either we'd have to change the rules in order to do it, or not do it at all. But then such a rule would be open to all sorts of mis-doings (e.g a chucker being allowed to play in a series decider). It wouldn't work

 

[smash84]

@andmark, but don't you think it would be seem more transparent if other bowlers are tested under the new regime. Hafeez's flex is 16 degree over the wicket. A fair number of hafeez deliveries seemed quite legal (at least to me. Of course a fair few seemed bad too). There should be some testing of a control group to see the results for the new testing regime.

 

[andmark]

@andmark, but don't you think it would be seem more transparent if other bowlers are tested under the new regime. Hafeez's flex is 16 degree over the wicket. A fair number of hafeez deliveries seemed quite legal (at least to me. Of course a fair few seemed bad too). There should be some testing of a control group to see the results for the new testing regime.

I'd agree in a "just to be sure" way that other bowlers who seem fine should be tested to see the results. Steyn would be a huge target for it

 

[jonbrooks]

But what if he got a wicket with everyone knowing there's a genuine chance that the bowl was a chuck- or worst case scenario he gets someone out who's playing for their career? Is the batsman immediately reprieved, but even then it would be in selectors' minds. it would be ridiculously controversial. And why can't it just be a thing of an umpire and cameras watching him bowl instead of a match?

This is a really good point and one of the main reasons I am so anti chucking.

 

[jonbrooks]

I'd agree in a "just to be sure" way that other bowlers who seem fine should be tested to see the results. Steyn would be a huge target for it

Agreed. I've also found certain deliveries of Dale Steyn quite dodgy.

 

[TNT]

Average extension of 16 degrees. huh! Let's ask umpires to call which is illegal / dodgy and which is not by looking at films. Then we can have a good idea on how "useful" is the reporting procedure. My guess is prurist will be in for a rude shock.

Don't the umpires first report suspect actions to the third umpire and match referee who then check the replays to decide if his action needs testing. The umpires make the initial call but it must be checked on the replays before the played is required to be tested.

And are you sure that there have not been players reported with suspect actions that have passed the replay checks, i.e. Steyn may have been reported by the umpires but when the third ref and match ref checked the replays decided that his action was OK.

 

[Dan]

The 15 degree limit is highly arbitary given that the limit was set using a different technology compared to current one. So letting few of those fring bowlers to bowl and figure out the results or test randomly and to establish new cutoff levels (which may be identical, but we don't know) would be the way forward. It is hihly debious since all the bowlers who are reported have extensions >25degrees. No one is below 25 when tested. The chances are that some normal looking actions may be going over 15 degrees. If that is the case a new level of tolerance has to be defined, or everybody has to be tested randomly.

All the bowlers who have been reported to date looked like baseball pitchers when they reached the crease. Senanayake looked atrocious, Ajmal had deteriorated to a ludicrous extent, KW's action was a parody of itself etc etc etc. It's no surprise they were all >25 degrees.

Hafeez, on the other hand, looked like he had a bit of straightening in his action but nothing overly offensive like the three aforementioned. His action ranked far lower on the Brumby scale. Him coming out at <25 isn't especially surprising; he always looked like a pretty borderline case because his action never looked that offensive.

Given the 15 degrees was set because it was apparently the point at which an action begins to look dodgy in real-time, Hafeez coming out at 15<x<25 degrees isn't surprising (and remember, he's back to 16 after his remedial work). Extenuating physiological circumstances aside, I think that almost all of the spinners for whom we think "hey, bit of a bend there, but it doesn't look Ajmal-twitter-pic bad" would be in that 15<x<25 zone.

 

[honestbharani]

Classic case of missing the point here by smali and migara... He has done his remedial work and it is only now that his flex is around the 16 to 19 degree mark. We do not know what it was before when he was reported. I agree that such small outliers can perhaps be allowed as it surely is in no way any huge advantage to flex your elbows 1 to 3 degrees more than the allowed level. At the same time, a line has to be drawn on what number is acceptable and if 15 is that number, we do need to enforce it rather rigidly as allowing exceptions is only going to open a bigger can of worms..



I am sure if Hafeez was able to improve his action so much to get it to around 16 to 19 degrees, he can easily bring it to less than 15 with more sustained remedial work on it.

 

[marc71178]

I am sure if Hafeez was able to improve his action so much to get it to around 16 to 19 degrees, he can easily bring it to less than 15 with more sustained remedial work on it.

In that case, fine, let him go back and continue the remedial work till he can pass the prescribed tests and then he can play.