Chucking: It isn't cricket!

Most of us in India watch cricket because we want to see India win. We constantly live in hope and find cheer in the smallest achievements of our men, rare as they are. Over the years, we have, however, come to not expect Indian victories and are quite willing to be satisfied with honourable defeats. Unfortunately, we are denied even these small mercies most of the time.

Equally depressing in international cricket are some other trends, which are not of India's doing. I refer to the number of bowlers with suspect actions dotting the scene and the irrational, even ethically unsustainable, stands sometimes taken by their respective cricket boards. The Pakistan Cricket Board has, for instance, announced that it will support paceman Shoaib Akhtar if he challenges, in a court of law, the recent International Cricket Council decision to review the legality of his bowling action. PCB officials have been reported as attributing any seeming abnormality in Akhtar's action to a congenital physical idiosyncrasy. This is carrying a tired excuse to extremes, and the very idea that a member body can go to court against the parent is quite preposterous.

Most knowledgeable cricket viewers have serious doubts about the propriety of the bowling actions of a number of bowlers whom they have been watching closely over the years. I have heard many of them, including Test umpires, voice strong opinions on the subject, although their public utterances may often be more politically correct. Much as I admire the extraordinary qualities of head and heart of Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, I have strong reservations about the legality of his bowling action, an opinion echoed by many an international cricketer, at least in private conversations.

Increasingly, much of the debate among some of these expert spectators at Test matches tends to centre around the minor chucking epidemic that seems to have swept international cricket. Doubts are frequently expressed especially about the wrong 'uns sent down by bowlers like Harbhajan Singh and even Saqlain Mushtaq, the faster deliveries of Shahid Afridi, not to mention the express deliveries of Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee. Long experience suggests that what the naked eye of the experienced cricketer sees is seldom proved wrong by technology.

My own view on efforts by captains and cricket boards to defend the suspect actions of their bowlers for emotional or patriotic reasons has always been that it is just not cricket. It is an extremely disappointing scenario that allows an Arjuna Ranatunga or a PCB to make an international issue of what should remain a strictly cricketing problem of a technical nature, and subsequently takes away the powers of umpires on the field to rule on unfair bowling actions. Just as sadly, numerous cricket commentators of immense knowledge and experience have supported such essentially political moves, forsaking the time-honoured values of cricket. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that they are part of the gigantic promotional machinery of the cricket bandwagon that wants to perpetuate icons who sell, even if they are flawed.