marc71178 said:
Indeed, look at poor Damien Martyn and Jason Gillespie being captained by Ponting...
LOL. The competence of a captain can play an instrumental role in the careers of several players and it is the objective ( or atleast, should be the objective) of the said nation to select the best man for the job. However, the competence( rather, the lack of it) of the umpires impact the whole game- the full spectrum of it in international levels. It is also the job of the said body(ICC) to ensure that the best solution for the job is implimented.
Umpires are not central part of the attraction cricket holds- the performance of its players is.
Umpires merely exist to facilitate a neutral and best possible decision-making to uphold the rules of cricket in the field of play.
Chucking, as it stands today, cannot be guaged reliably in the field of play on a real-time basis. As such, the descision has been removed from the hands of the umpires and justifiably so. Same with run-outs. In many aspects, this whole Murali saga is similar to the Hank Aaron saga in baseball. Aaron was the first black player of superstar capability to make it in the unified MLB after Jackie Robinson and there was intense media hatred, along with race-based hatred directed towards Aaron, especially in the latter years of his career. The major reason being (apart from the obvious racial superiority tilt in the common US culture at that time) Aaron was threatening the home run record of Babe Ruth, the American hero of baseball ( the Bradman figure if you must draw a comparison).
The idea that a black man would usurp the record of glorious Babe was unpalatable for most 'white is right' Americans.
In this case, there is fair dollop of racism involved but the prime issue, IMO, is that someone with an unconventional action, ( though legal in every sense of the world- today and when judged retroactively with the whole field in perspective) such as Murali, would most likely end up holding the record for most wickets over traditional practitioners of the art, such as Warne. The link i find is that the unconventional trumps the conventional. Yet another reason why Murali's accomplishments are fiercely debated with respect to Warney's while such debates are almost never entertained in respect of Hadlee and Lillee/Marshall/Imran for example, despite the fact that Hadlee is to Murali and Lillee/Marshall/Imran are to Warne in much the same way.
Most people see it as Murali being 'lucky to get away with it' when in reality, he is lucky that his captain stood by him and exposed the massive misconceptions and idiotic notions regarding chucking that was the fabric of the old school cricketing culture. He should be applauded for his resolute stance on this and not let the largely fabricated ( and persistent, despite facts proving otherwise) notions of bowling legality being bandied around, ironically enough mostly from the home front of his arch-rival Warney, destroy his career.
The fact that he was questioned early on due to his unsual action is not what draws my ire- i see that as justified and reasonable in that timeframe with the knowledge they had.
The fact that his action and its legality is STILL questioned, despite being categorically proven that his action is no worse than most other bowlers and some bowlers with pristine actions are just as much of a chucker as Murali ( for eg. McGrath) still doesnt deter from the largely clueless and media-fed bashers of Murali is what irks me the most.
We have ridiculous assumptions and notions being bandied around to determine who is a chucker and who isnt, by people hopelessly inadequate in the relevant fields.
We've heard laughable notions of slow-mo replay from TVs ( nevermind that slow-mo replay from TVs are hopelessly inadequate in representing a 3-d motion, owing to its 2-d nature, from a single-perspective camera angle).
We've heard ridiculous notion on how Murali's armspeed is slower than McGrath's or other bowlers and twistings of the word arm-speed to suit their personal agenda, when it has been made amply clear time and time again (atleast by me) that armspeed is in reference to the time it takes the arm to complete the final delivery swing ( ie, from the point the arm goes into the final delivery swing to when the ball is released).
We've also heard how the ICC rules have been drawn up to accomodate Murali, his flexion being in the 14.2(or whatever decimal point) range and the 15 degree rule exists solely to humour Murali, as 99% of bowlers would fall in 14 degrees or below.
Nevermind the fact that the degree of accuracy for the study was 1 degrees, so any decimal point after 14 would be irrelevant and immeasurable by instruments and can only be drawn upon by mathematical average ( which is always trimmed accordingly to the error range/accuracy of the equipments. Hence significant figures are so frickin important in any scientific measurement).
Nevermind the fact that you cannot quote the final answer to be 15.32424234233241 if the measuring device is accurate to only 2 decimal points ( in this case, the measuring device is accurate to 1 degree, so any decimal point value is discarded, even if it is the mathematical solution). Nevermind that in almost all walks of life, the tolerance levels specified always take into account the highest possible error range along with the lowest possible one. Nevermind that it is not just convention, but logical to take the upperbound error limit ( which is 15 degrees for a measurement of 14 degrees +/- 1 degree error reading) for the highest set tolerance level where suitable and lowerbound error limit ( such as crafting industrial washers or rings- the outer radius is always set with the highest bound error limit and the inner radius always set with the lowest bound error limit).
People tend to have too much of a puffed up ego, letting them conclude that they know it best, when all one has to do is defer judgement to the experts in the appropriate fields. I consider some attempts of utterly clueless people ( in matters of experimental methodology or scientific analysis- required knowledge to accurately guage the flexion of the elbow) to be as laughable and ludicrous as me instructing Picasso how to draw or Mozart on how to compose a piano piece ( i am clueless when it comes to painting or the piano). Ofcourse, such a ludicrous example, given to illustrate the stupidity of some is taken literally verbatim to further support their non-existant case.
Pathetic state of affairs really.
. Diet Coke 