*Official* Warne vs Murali Discussion

[C_C]

Unfortunately, they did have the right to make such a call and, on the available evidence, got it absolutely correct.

The players have rules to adhere to and the it is the umpires job to enforce those rules to the best of their ability. Nowhere in these rules does it say that the umpires must be mindful of future advances in technology or revisions in thinking.

Utter bulldust. Players have rule to adhere to and umpires have the job to be fair in dispensing with the rules - incompetence from the umpires is NOT an excuse and incompetence to let go all but one constitutes victimisation of one for the same crime that everyone else is guilty of. Future technology or not, the fact is, the umpires are incompetent and cannot tell the difference between an optical illusion and reality and therefore are in error.

And just what has it cost Murali?

Caused him a lotta hassle and unfair comments such as what you are comming up with.
He's gone on to take hundreds more wickets.

He's made out to be a martyr by some when he was undeniably in the wrong.

If he was undebiably in the wrong, so was mcGrath or Warne and incompetence in detecting their kinks is not a clean bill of health. it shows that McGrath, Warne and everyone else got away with something that only Murali was victimised for through no fault of his !

Compare his case to Ian Meckiff, whose action was no worse.

Thrown out of the game and never played at any real level again.

Do you hear any Aus bleating for an apology to be made to him?

Or what of Geoff Griffin?

I dont hear too many SA supporters leaping to his defence.

If Murali had been Australian, I wonder what the punishment would've been?

Something tells me that if he had been, the only way that he'd ever have graced a cricket field again would be with a vastly remodelled action.

Irrelevant. Past idiocies and stupidity does not justify current stupidity and that kinda logic is very backwards. By that logic, we should still be sitting in caves.

 

[social]

C C

so the essence of your argument is that Murali, despite clearly contravening existing laws, should not have been called for no-balls a decade ago because subsequent research has shown that all bowlers bar Sehwag commit similar, albeit lesser, infractions. And further, you base your assertion on evidence provided by technology that has never been available to umpires on the field.

That, my friend, is utter hogwash.

The umpires are only able to adjudicate on evidence that they can glean with their own eyes.

Murali committed blatant infringements and was rightly called.

McGrath, Warne, Holding, Donald, etc, etc, etc may have committed the same offence but the technology available to the umpires, i.e. their own eyes, was not sufficiently advanced to detect it. As a result, the laws of the game dictated that their actions pass scrutiny.

End of story.

 

[C_C]

so the essence of your argument is that Murali, despite clearly contravening existing laws, should not have been called for no-balls a decade ago because subsequent research has shown that all bowlers bar Sehwag commit similar, albeit lesser, infractions. And further, you base your assertion on evidence provided by technology that has never been available to umpires on the field.

For one, his infraction is not far worse than someone like McGrath's, who's flexion is at 12 degrees or so while Murali's is around 14 degrees or so. For one, bowling speeds are irrelevant to arm flexion- whats relevant is how fast your arms are turning and Murali turns his arms much faster than McGrath does. So if you wanna call someone a chucker, McGrath is a more obvious choice.

And the basic point is this - Murali was called for something which everyone is doing and asked to do something that is almost impossible ( that is, bowl with zero flexion).
It is not his fault that our eyes are not good enough to differentiate between an illusion and reality.
Not his fault that his hyper-mobile wrists cause you to 'see' things that really are not there.
It is the incompetence of the observer, not a fault of Murali's.
And since he has been victimised for no fault of his own, due to erroneous assumptions and impressions, he deserves an apology.
Its like pronouncing someone guilty on circumstantial evidence and later it is found that such circumstantial evidence applied to everyone would make everyone a criminal.
So your logical course of action is to apologise and scrap the dumb law.

Whether someone is contravening the law or not is fundamentally dependent on the letter of the law ( as well as the spirit), not on how good ( or bad) your detection instruments are.
Simple as that.
Bottomline is, he was heckled for something that McGrath , Warne, Kumble, Pollock and every damn bowler is guilty of.
If you are not gonna heckle the other bowlers for the same infraction due to your incompetency, the least you can do is apologise to Murali for targetting him unfairly.
And the ultimate bottomline is, Murali's action- current and past, is as legit as any other bowler today or in the history of this game. End of story.

 

[social]

C C,

you can fabricate all the the fallacious arguments you like, but the following are facts.

1. Murali was correctly called for throwing as it was adjudicated by the naked eye and subsequently confirmed in testing

2. Umpires do not have the benefit of technology when making decisions on whether a bowler throws or not

3. Without technology, there has never been the slightest suscpicion of McGrath, Donald, etc, etc, etc being throwers and, as such, they were never in danger of being called under the old laws

4. With the aid of technology, Murali's action is still akin to throwing darts whilst virtually everyone else is "conventional" and, as such, he will continue to attract greater scrutiny

5. Despite 4, he is obviously regarded as being within tolerance levels at present and therefore above reproach since the introduction of these new standards.

6. Your theory on relative arm speeds is total drivel

In other words, get over it.

Arguments based on emotion dont hold much water in the scientific world and they wont cut it on CW

 

[C_C]

1. Murali was correctly called for throwing

Indeed. But McGrath, Warne, et al. were incorrectly let off the hook because of the incompetency of the umpires.

3. Without technology, there has never been the slightest suscpicion of McGrath, Donald, etc, etc, etc being throwers and, as such, they were never in danger of being called under the old laws

Irrelevant. That doesnt cast any positive light on the abovementioned bowler, merely underlines the incompetency of the umpires in calling chucking.

4. With the aid of technology, Murali's action is still akin to throwing darts

It can be throwing darts or as ludicrous as bowling with your feet but Murali's action is no less legal than McGrath's for example.

5. Despite 4, he is obviously regarded as being within tolerance levels and therefore above reproach since the introduction of these new standards.

So are McGrath, Warne and rest of the crew.

6. Your theory on relative arm speeds is total drivel

Contact the SFU kinesiology department if you wish but in this respect, YOU are the one spewing drivel, not the other way round.

Arguments based on emotion dont hold much water in the scientific world and they wont cut it on CW

I am arguing based on logic, not emotion. The bottomline, supported by facts, is that Murali got called while McGrath, et al. got away with the same 'crime' because the umpires were incompetent in detecting their chucks but mistook the optical illusion created by Murali's unique action as 'a much worse' action.
The bottomline is also that Murali doesnt chuck any more than any other player in cricket and that umpires are neither qualified nor competent to call chucks.

 

[social]

Indeed. But McGrath, Warne, et al. were incorrectly let off the hook because of the incompetency of the umpires.



Irrelevant. That doesnt cast any positive light on the abovementioned bowler, merely underlines the incompetency of the umpires in calling chucking.



It can be throwing darts or as ludicrous as bowling with your feet but Murali's action is no less legal than McGrath's for example.



So are McGrath, Warne and rest of the crew.



Contact the SFU kinesiology department if you wish but in this respect, YOU are the one spewing drivel, not the other way round.



I am arguing based on logic, not emotion. The bottomline, supported by facts, is that Murali got called while McGrath, et al. got away with the same 'crime' because the umpires were incompetent in detecting their chucks but mistook the optical illusion created by Murali's unique action as 'a much worse' action.
The bottomline is also that Murali doesnt chuck any more than any other player in cricket and that umpires are neither qualified nor competent to call chucks.

Typical scientist.

Great with theory but totally divorced from the real world.

Goes a long way to explaining your "chardonnay socialist" view of the world.

 

[C_C]

Typical scientist.

Great with theory but totally divorced from the real world.

Goes a long way to explaining your "chardonnay socialist" view of the world.

Incase you forget, its scientists like me who made semiconductor theory into practicality and that is why you are able to post here.
And incase you forget, my field is engineering, not theoretical science- my entire education is based on practical applications, not theoretical goobledegook.
Also rather ironic that you consider scientists to be lacking practical knowledge, considering that almost every single amenity of western living is a product of practical applications of science.
As per my economic views, i would rather take the viewpoints adopted by people who know far more about economics than you do and have the foresight to see that current world economics is a bit like a car with square wheels. But i guess those in the car used to the bumping around dont see it.
Irrespective of how you wish to potray it, facts prove that Murali is no more a chucker than McGrath and rest of the crew. Whether you and the rest get routinely fooled by that which doesnt exist ( ie, optical illusions- look it up, you'd be surprised to learn how crude the human eye is) but that is not Murali's problem.
if you rely on incompetent tools, you will get incompetent results, as demonstrated by the whole chucking controversy.

 

[Slow Love™]

C_C,

I actually agree that Murali copped a raw deal, and it was unfortunate that he was perpetually attacked for something that clearly at the very least many bowlers have been doing (pretty much the great majority if we are talking about any level of straightening of the arm whatsoever).

If someone was to criticize Hair for his comments much later (in his book), I would be sympathetic, because it was indiscreet, and developed work was already being done to illustrate the problems of not allowing any degree of straightening whatsoever.

But as to Hair's decisions back when Murali was no-balled, they can certainly be defended. You want to call the decision of calling Murali "incompetent" on the part of the umpire, but this is an unfair description. In hindsight, "Inadequately equipped" to make the decision would be more apt.

Much of the reason for such attention on Murali's action was based on the concept of an optical illusion. If we concede the the optical illusion (cited by many in Murali's defence, including yourself) exists, than it immediately makes it clear why he was given more attention by umpires than say, Glenn McGrath or Shane Warne. That is not incompetency, that is an umpire trusting their eyes as they had for around a century previous.

Advances in science bring greater understanding - now we know better. But Hair did not, and he was far from the only person concerned about Murali's action at first look. If this was not an extremely relevant issue, an argument of optical illusion would simply not have been necessary - people would have instead been critical of Hair because they couldn't understand why on earth he was seeing the action as so dubious. The truth of course is that this is the very basis of the optical illusion - that it fools us, so we think somebody is throwing the ball more egregiously than they actually are.

One more thing I would raise - you should be a lot more careful if you're going to represent as facts comments like "Murali is no worse than McGrath or Warne". While I'm pretty sure I read that McGrath might have touched 11 or 12 degrees at some stage, I don't believe I've ever read any analysis of Warne's degree of straightening, and certainly neither of them have even been lab-studied to my knowledge. There's also a big difference in what somebody records highly infrequently, and what somebody else might record on a constant basis. I am largely agnostic about it - maybe they straighten to a similar degree on a similar basis - but I don't think it's right for you to make such statements of "fact" over something we actually have extremely little (certainly at any kind of public level) empirical evidence of.

 

[social]

Incase you forget, its scientists like me who made semiconductor theory into practicality and that is why you are able to post here.
And incase you forget, my field is engineering, not theoretical science- my entire education is based on practical applications, not theoretical goobledegook.
As per my economic views, i would rather take the viewpoints adopted by people who know far more about economics than you do and have the foresight to see that current world economics is a bit like a car with square wheels. But i guess those in the car used to the bumping around dont see it.
Irrespective of how you wish to potray it, facts prove that Murali is no more a chucker than McGrath and rest of the crew. Whether you and the rest get routinely fooled by that which doesnt exist ( ie, optical illusions- look it up, you'd be surprised to learn how crude the human eye is) but that is not Murali's problem.
if you rely on incompetent tools, you will get incompetent results, as demonstrated by the whole chucking controversy.

Look up the law.

Chucking is judged by the naked eye of the umpire, nothing else.

The fact that the imperfections in Murali's technique were more readily discernible with the naked eye than those of others is tough but his technique still contravened the law of the time.

And BTW, Im able to post here because capitalists brought computers and the internet to the masses. If not for the capital provided by taxpayers and university benefactors (most of whom are rampant capitalists BTW), engineers' work would largely be superfluous.

 

[social]

C_C,

I actually agree that Murali copped a raw deal, and it was unfortunate that he was perpetually attacked for something that clearly at the very least many bowlers have been doing (pretty much the great majority if we are talking about any level of straightening of the arm whatsoever).

If someone was to criticize Hair for his comments much later (in his book), I would be sympathetic, because it was indiscreet, and developed work was already being done to illustrate the problems of not allowing any degree of straightening whatsoever.

But as to Hair's decisions back when Murali was no-balled, they can certainly be defended. You want to call the decision of calling Murali "incompetent" on the part of the umpire, but this is an unfair description. In hindsight, "Inadequately equipped" to make the decision would be more apt.

Much of the reason for such attention on Murali's action was based on the concept of an optical illusion. If we concede the the optical illusion (cited by many in Murali's defence, including yourself) exists, than it immediately makes it clear why he was given more attention by umpires than say, Glenn McGrath or Shane Warne. That is not incompetency, that is an umpire trusting their eyes as they had for around a century previous.

Advances in science bring greater understanding - now we know better. But Hair did not, and he was far from the only person concerned about Murali's action at first look. If this was not an extremely relevant issue, an argument of optical illusion would simply not have been necessary - people would have instead been critical of Hair because they couldn't understand why on earth he was seeing the action as so dubious. The truth of course is that this is the very basis of the optical illusion - that it fools us, so we think somebody is throwing the ball more egregiously than they actually are.

One more thing I would raise - you should be a lot more careful if you're going to represent as facts comments like "Murali is no worse than McGrath or Warne". While I'm pretty sure I read that McGrath might have touched 11 or 12 degrees at some stage, I don't believe I've ever read any analysis of Warne's degree of straightening, and certainly neither of them have even been lab-studied to my knowledge. There's also a big difference in what somebody records highly infrequently, and what somebody else might record on a constant basis. I am largely agnostic about it - maybe they straighten to a similar degree on a similar basis - but I don't think it's right for you to make such statements of "fact" over something we actually have extremely little (certainly at any kind of public level) empirical evidence of.

Eloquently put.

However, history has proven that Hair and Emerson were not inadequately equipped to judge Murali. They got their decisions correct in his case and, if anything, let him off lightly.

But history has also shown us that all umpires are inadequately equipped to discern straightening in actions where it is not so prevalent.

In a relative sense, Murali has been hardly done by if it can be unequivocally proven that straightening was determined BY THE NAKED EYE in other bowlers and not acted upon. To the best of my knowledge, this is not the case.

In isolation, he was undoubtedly guilty as charged.

 

[Jono]

Why the hell did Hair have a book? Who the hell would read that?

One controversial incident makes his life worth reading about?

 

[Dasa]

Why the hell did Hair have a book? Who the hell would read that?

One controversial incident makes his life worth reading about?

If Flintoff can have an autobiography when his career is barely halfway through, why not Hair?
I think I'll write a book on my brilliant Test career even before it's started!

 

[Jono]

Yeah Flintoff's timing of his book release was quite poor, but at least there would be some interesting stories to tell there. How he took a long time to actually prosper, the journey would be interesting, problem is the journey isn't finished. Even so, I'm sure it'd have some funny jokes and stories there. Plus, it makes economic sense since he was extremely popular and the book would sell.

Hair on the other hand, what a boring book that must be seriously. I can imagine the chapters relating to his childhood and how his family always had faith in him becoming an umpire.

 

[Dasa]

Hair on the other hand, what a boring book that must be seriously. I can imagine the chapters relating to his childhood and how his family always had faith in him becoming an umpire.

Yeah..I can imagine it. "Don't worry Darryl, one day you'll get that white coat you've always dreamed of!"

 

[Slow Love™]

Eloquently put.

However, history has proven that Hair and Emerson were not inadequately equipped to judge Murali. They got their decisions correct in his case and, if anything, let him off lightly.

But history has also shown us that all umpires are inadequately equipped to discern straightening in actions where it is not so prevalent.

Yeah, you're right, and your second phrase is what I should have said. It all adds up to being inadequately equipped to accurately (and fairly) enforce that aspect of the game's laws.

In a relative sense, Murali has been hardly done by if it can be unequivocally proven that straightening was determined BY THE NAKED EYE in other bowlers and not acted upon. To the best of my knowledge, this is not the case.

This is just a matter of perspective. You don't have to accept that the game's authorities knew that everybody else was breaking the laws and deliberately conspired to isolate Murali for him to have been hard done by. It simply requires an unfortunate conception that the game's laws at the time were adequate (obviously they were not), and a presumption that what you see with your naked eye is the only story.

And it's possible (and maybe even likely) that other players whose careers were ended before these events were even more hard done by.

 

[Jono]

LOL! Must be selling like hotcakes!

 

[honestbharani]

Not visible with naked eye zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

see my post right after that post zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[Deja moo]

He was called from the bowler's end.

Exactly!

Now, explain to me, how the eff does one figure out whether a bowler is bending his arm, which essentially requires a sideways view for even naked-eye analysis, if you're watching his back ???

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah, you're right, and your second phrase is what I should have said. It all adds up to being inadequately equipped to accurately (and fairly) enforce that aspect of the game's laws.


This is just a matter of perspective. You don't have to accept that the game's authorities knew that everybody else was breaking the laws and deliberately conspired to isolate Murali for him to have been hard done by. It simply requires an unfortunate conception that the game's laws at the time were adequate (obviously they were not), and a presumption that what you see with your naked eye is the only story.

And it's possible (and maybe even likely) that other players whose careers were ended before these events were even more hard done by.

But since the rules themselves have been proven as wrong, why are you still defending those two umpires? Plus, I heard an interview with Darryl Harper when he said that he was never sure if Murali was straightening his arm completely from the bent position when he starts. And because no other umpire called him, including a former great off spinner in Venkatraghavan, who has ALWAYS said that it was IMPOSSIBLE to be convinced whether he was transgressing the laws or not, implying that his flex wasn't as VISIBLE as you guys seem to think, I think there is a lot of ground for doubting why Hair and Emerson did what they did.

 

[Jono]

Exactly!

Now, explain to me, how the eff does one figure out whether a bowler is bending his arm, which essentially requires a sideways view for even naked-eye analysis, if you're watching his back ???

I'm sure the awesome ability Hair has to judge, to the exact degree, with his naked eye how much Murali flexes, and that to from behind, is explained in his amazing autobiography. I advise you to get it