So the ICC evidence is finally in - and apparently even Glen McGrath chucks...

[Jono]

Every white spinner around the world would be banned if they bowled like Murali. Warnie, Macgilla, Giles, Mushtaq, Vettori EVERYONE. But OH NO Muralis black, we'd better change the rules.

Thank God for free speech. It keeps us entertained.

 

[Jono]

If someone was to be pulled over by police and a breath test showed he was 3 times the legal limit his liscence would be taked off him for 1-2 years. Yet Murali has done the EXCAT same thing and instead of a ban he gets the rules changed to suit his delivery.

If someone was caught 2 times the legal limit the same would occur.
If someone was caught 10 times the legal limit, the same would occur.
If someone was cut 2% over the legal limit, the same would occur.

Thus, not only should Murali's license be removed, but so should McGrath's, Pollock's, Vaas' and hell, let's go get Ambrose's and Akram's too.

Oh and 'taked' isn't a word genius. For your sake I just hope it was a typing error.

 

[Scaly piscine]

*If* there was gonna be any ethnic or race bias it would be because Murali is Asian and we all know the ICC has an Asian bias, but I doubt ICC care about one individual that much.

All of the quoted figures on the reports on CricInfo are pretty vague, I dunno if anyone knows where there are any proper figures or not, but the figures quoted I've seen so far for someone like McGrath or Harmison could be the worst 1 ball out of 1000 or they could be the 'average' delivery. The same goes for other bowlers, it could also be that they picked footage of when McGrath was getting a tonking from a tail-ender and he started to lose it and 'chuck' the ball a bit. Until there's some proper details coming out, the figures quoted on sites so far will remain somewhat useless.

The enforcement of the 15 degrees is also going to be somewhat dodgy, what happens when somebody bowls the odd ball (deliberately or not) over the 15 degree mark in a Test match? A player could do that every other Test and not get a no-ball called. Also what happened to the relationship between bowling speed & allowed angle of straightening? Surely that should have been changed to speed of arm & allowed angle of straightening which is logical and would be better than 15 degrees being used for EVERY bowler (Murali conspiracy theorists quote last sentence).

 

[kasra]

Perhaps the best comment on this issue came from former Australian great Jeff Thompson. Thommo was on the Melbourne radio station SEN 1116 and when asked about the ICC's decision he replied "This is decision is an absolute bloody joke. He's been found to be breaking the rules and instead of doing something about it the ICC have changed the rules to allow him to bowl the bloody ball. The ICC are a bunch of jacket wearing clowns. The lot of them should be burnt."

Quoting from another former Australian cricketer, now thats credible unbiased opinion on Murali's action. Not! Whats next quotes from John Howard, Kerry O'Keefe, Lillee, Ross Emerson (remember him?) etc etc. Case closed. Lets accept Australia's verdict on this matter, screw science! screw the findings that most bowlers straighten their arm beyond the tolerance limit! (Lets conveniently ignore that fact in our criticism of ICC's change)

Sadly for most Australians despite all the scientific evidence ,they will continue to take a "flat-earth" view of Murali's action. Join the 21st century Australia, the rest of the world has.

 

[Son Of Coco]

From what I can gather:

hyper-extending is when the elbow moves backwards, past the angle of 180 degrees (i.e., the "non-natural" way, if that makes sense).

adduct and abduct refer to sideways movement of the elbow - I presume one is "inside", and the other "outside", if that makes sense.

The conclusion that Angus Fraser and the rest of the team given the task to look at these issues seem to have come to is that they will not penalize those (like Shoaib) who hyper-extend, abduct or adduct, because they consider them completely involuntary movements, caused by the force of the arm as it rolls over during delivery. So the tolerance levels do NOT pertain to this. They refer to the usual concept of the straightening of the elbow in a throwing action, like you would return a ball in the field.

The reason 15 degrees was chosen was not completely arbitary. According to the study, it's the degree to which an element of excessive straightening is detectable to the naked eye. There also seems to be an assumption that once we get to this level of straightening, there's room for voluntary remedial correction (because the player has some control over that degree, as opposed to the hyper-extending, etc, etc).

If you want more stuff apart from the cricinfo articles, Angus Fraser's articles at the Independent are a good place to start...

http://sport.independent.co.uk/cricket/story.jsp?story=581257

http://sport.independent.co.uk/cricket/story.jsp?story=581256

Given that the existing rules were based on the degree of orthodox (for want of a better word) straightening, and NOT hyper-extending, adduction, abduction, etc, I think your questions are resolved, and that it does seem that Murali is no worse than the majority of bowlers out there, past and present. In my opinion, anyway.

I think the only refutation available for those that still want to isolate Murali is that those studying this issue are lying.

So what they're referring to with McGrath etc is not hyperextension? The first article mentioned that this was looked at so I got a bit confused as to whether it was that they looked at or otherwise. Thanks for the articles though, I'll have a further read.

 

[Son Of Coco]

This may be very disappointing to you, but I wasn't talking to you. I already know you and your opinions - nothing original, new or exciting there.

I know who you were talking to.......I read the posts.

I know what you think my opinions are but unfortunately you've been blinded by the light, so I doubt you have any idea what i really think.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Why do you suppose ONLY Hair has a problem with Murali - he started the whole thing anyway ? Anyway, the bottom line was that the majority of umpires, as it turns out, were right and Mr. Hair was WRONG. Imagine if an Sri Lankan umpire had called Brett Lee for chucking - can you imagine all quickly the so-called Aussies Greats would have come out and lambasted the poor umpire. And here, you are making excuses for a sorry umpire - Hair.

and you're a man on a vendetta.....actually it turns out a majority of umpires were wrong if you take this latest development to the nth degree. Apparently everyone was throwing, even Murali. So they all should have been called. Hair was the only one who did anything right according to latest findings, and even he missed everyone else. Murali supporters have been so fond of quoting the optical illusion thing for a while now but then won't allow an umpire to call him as the rules stood allowing for the fact that they might see this 'illusion' in the same way most other people did (Personally, if you actually play cricket I can't see how you'd look at his action and say anything other than "gee, that looks a bit funny").

Murali has seemingly been proven to be in the right (as far as not being the only one) and that's fine, but stop crucifying the guy (Hair) for doing his job at the time. Do you honestly think, after the furor surrounding his decision to call Murali, that any other umpire was going to risk the same thing by calling him again? They'd have to be stupid.

 

[anzac]

firstly let me say that I am getting pretty annoyed at the 'racial' issue being brought into this thread.................regardless of any implication of it (racism) being an issue, all it does is serve to inflame the thread away from logical debate & into one of emotive name calling................

furthermore it ultimately detracts from the main points at issue - the findings from the testing in regard to the general standard of bowling being in excess of current laws..............

Slow Love - sorry friend, we are basically in agreement - my apologies for using my responses to your posts to try to highlight some key points that I think the 'terrace elements' are siezing upon to the point of ignoring all else....as such my response was primarily for 'them' and not directed at your good self.............

I'm curious as to how the results of these tests vindicate Murali & show he was right - about what exactly?????

As I said b4 I'm also curious as to how they can say that past 'greats' have also exceeded the limit - how did they come to this conclusion, when as I understand it, they have had to use high speed cameras 10x faster than TV to make these findings in relation to the current generation of bowlers.........

 

[Langeveldt]

SO everyones at fault... Lets all go play hopscotch or something else...

 

[JustTool]

and you're a man on a vendetta.....actually it turns out a majority of umpires were wrong if you take this latest development to the nth degree. Apparently everyone was throwing, even Murali. So they all should have been called. Hair was the only one who did anything right according to latest findings, and even he missed everyone else. Murali supporters have been so fond of quoting the optical illusion thing for a while now but then won't allow an umpire to call him as the rules stood allowing for the fact that they might see this 'illusion' in the same way most other people did (Personally, if you actually play cricket I can't see how you'd look at his action and say anything other than "gee, that looks a bit funny").

Murali has seemingly been proven to be in the right (as far as not being the only one) and that's fine, but stop crucifying the guy (Hair) for doing his job at the time. Do you honestly think, after the furor surrounding his decision to call Murali, that any other umpire was going to risk the same thing by calling him again? They'd have to be stupid.

I think you are splitting Hairs Your quote: "They'd have to be stupid" to call Murali again is spot-on. Hair was just ahead of his time - in being stupid, I mean.

 

[JustTool]

The ICC are a bunch of jacket wearing clowns. The lot of them should be burnt."

A real mature comment from a real mature Aussie fast bowler

 

[JustTool]

Every white spinner around the world would be banned if they bowled like Murali. Warnie, Macgilla, Giles, Mushtaq, Vettori EVERYONE. But OH NO Muralis black, we'd better change the rules.

Murali, for your information, is not black. He is Sri Lankan. And he has way more class as a human being than Warne ever will and can ever hope to...

And, if indeed the rules were changed, as you profess, to accomodate Murali's skin color...well, then I suppose you better watch out in this new world order. People like you may not have a place to hide

 

[marc71178]

Hair was just ahead of his time - in being stupid, I mean.

In spite of the fact that Hair has been proven 100% in calling Murali?

 

[Slow Love™]

Slow Love - sorry friend, we are basically in agreement - my apologies for using my responses to your posts to try to highlight some key points that I think the 'terrace elements' are siezing upon to the point of ignoring all else....as such my response was primarily for 'them' and not directed at your good self.............

I'm curious as to how the results of these tests vindicate Murali & show he was right - about what exactly?????

Yeah, no problem man, I know what you're saying, and I believed at the time (and still do) that Murali should have waited for the research to do the talking. Particularly as it was mainly supposition at that point (even if they were right), and the comprehensive work was yet to be done.

As to how Murali is vindicated, what I mean is his claim that he was being unfairly targeted. I don't think intent (although, we would have to acknowledge that with some cricket fans, it was there) has to be proven in order to come to this conclusion - the truth bears it out. Murali's no worse than the vast majority of bowlers out there. That we can defend those who suspected him for a reason doesn't change the fact that what happened to him was unfair, and the ICC should (and could have) resolved this situation a lot earlier than it did.

As I said b4 I'm also curious as to how they can say that past 'greats' have also exceeded the limit - how did they come to this conclusion, when as I understand it, they have had to use high speed cameras 10x faster than TV to make these findings in relation to the current generation of bowlers.........

I had assumed they might have developed likely points of comparison that can be extrapolated from when looking at older footage for likely "matches", but more detail as to how this works would be useful. Certainly, the raw evidence has been very persuasive to past bowlers like Fraser and Holding (who, I believe, was a sceptic walking in...?). Either way, I guess we've still got a major issue on our hands if all the current players (including Pollock, McGrath, et al) results were breaching the tolerance levels so widely.

 

[Slow Love™]

So what they're referring to with McGrath etc is not hyperextension? The first article mentioned that this was looked at so I got a bit confused as to whether it was that they looked at or otherwise. Thanks for the articles though, I'll have a further read.

From what I can tell, no. They DID look at hyper-extension, adducting and abducting, etc. It was just decided that this was completely involuntary and impossible to control or police (at any degree). This seemed to refer to double-jointed bowlers like Shoaib and a few others, though.

The hyper-extending, etc isn't going to be factored into the tolerance levels, so they don't factor into whether a delivery is legal or not.

 

[SquidAU]

The way I see it is this:

If the ICC banned Murali or even just his doosra, there would be outrage not just from the Sri Lankans, but maybe the BCCI and PCB, which provide a hell of a lot of income for the ICC and world cricket. There would be accusations of racism thrown around, a rift would be created in world cricket that could possible never heal.

Don't kid yourselves people, cricket is big business and the countries with the most populations hold sway. Imagine the outrage from Indians if Harbhajan had is doosra banned? (which I read somewhere he does chuck that a little as well) Where would cricket be then?

So the ICC just say "99% of all bowlers chuck", change the law to basically accomodate one person, sweep the rest under the carpet and all is well with the world.

This is just some thoughts i had while sitting on the toilet!

 

[Craig]

Warne is God: Murali has an advantage because he's black?!!? Puh-friggin'-lease, being black in this world has NEVER been an advantage. I mean, one could put forward a far more convincing case that it's indeed because he's black that he's been hounded more than any other bowler.

And Langeveldt, brother, you've always been one of my favourite CW posters but geez, this hatred of Murali is bordering on irrational.

As for the chucking issue, it would be physiologically impossible to not throw a little bit, as evidenced by those guys who are considered to be the best, who all have a degree of flexion (not a surprise to me; I'm surprised it was so surprising to so many people!). These tests prove it and all the nay-sayers have been able to say in response is "Well, I trust my eyes." Well guess what? Eyes are human and therefore flawed. Case in point; the concept of parallax error.

The thing is, the chucking issue had to be dealt with from two standpoints; technical and legal. No-one had properly defined what a 'throw' in cricket really was or come up with baseline data to show what a 'legal' delivery was. Guys like the team from UWA are doing what needed to be done and have pretty conclusively shown that all bowlers flex to a certain degree so the concept of 'chucking' needed to be redefined. It's laughable that people are still arguing with it, really.

Second, the former laws would not have withstood a legal challenge. This I always suspected and was re-iterated by Time May (who is a lawyer by training). Something needed to be done to make the laws defendable in court and this is a great effort. Again, all the nay-sayers aren't thinking all of the issues through. Welcome to the professional sporting world!

You have a way of making things seem so obvious.

 

[Craig]

Don't kid yourselves people, cricket is big business and the countries with the most populations hold sway. Imagine the outrage from Indians if Harbhajan had is doosra banned? (which I read somewhere he does chuck that a little as well) Where would cricket be then?

Is actually possible to bowl the doosra without actually chucking it to some degree?

 

[JustTool]

The way I see it is this:

Imagine the outrage from Indians if Harbhajan had is doosra banned? (which I read somewhere he does chuck that a little as well)

thoughts i had while sitting on the toilet!

Firstly, congratulations on your excellent sources from whom you 'hear' things - that's really reliable information. Secondly, you know what, the toilet is a great place - maybe you should hang out there more often - it does seem you do your best 'hearing' and thinking there.

 

[anzac]

As to how Murali is vindicated, what I mean is his claim that he was being unfairly targeted. I don't think intent (although, we would have to acknowledge that with some cricket fans, it was there) has to be proven in order to come to this conclusion - the truth bears it out. Murali's no worse than the vast majority of bowlers out there. That we can defend those who suspected him for a reason doesn't change the fact that what happened to him was unfair, and the ICC should (and could have) resolved this situation a lot earlier than it did.

I had assumed they might have developed likely points of comparison that can be extrapolated from when looking at older footage for likely "matches", but more detail as to how this works would be useful. Certainly, the raw evidence has been very persuasive to past bowlers like Fraser and Holding (who, I believe, was a sceptic walking in...?). Either way, I guess we've still got a major issue on our hands if all the current players (including Pollock, McGrath, et al) results were breaching the tolerance levels so widely.

I'm not convinced that he was being unfairly targeted when his action LOOKS suspect to the naked eye, and the tests showed he was over the existing limits..........if he was the 'victim' of anything IMO then perhaps it was from having a dodgey looking action as opposed to the rest of the bowlers.........

I'm ok with the referral to the current bowlers as tested in so far as the exceeding the current limits are concerned, but I have a BIIG problem with such a generalised statement regarding past bowlers, if all they have to go on is an extrapolation based upon current evidence.............no matter how accurate or compelling...............unless they can provide stronger evidence then IMO they should be saying something like "evidence suggests that it is likely that most past bowlers...............etc", rather than as it appears to have been reported that they categorically DID..........