Sri Lanka Cricket hits back at Bedi

Media manager hints at possible legal action against the former Indian skipper for his outburst

Sri Lanka Cricket officials yesterday hit back former Indian test captain Bishan Singh Bedi over his alleged comment that Sri Lanka’s champion spinner Muttiah Muralitharan is a “monster” setting wrong precedent to youngsters.

Sri Lanka Cricket’s media manager Samantha Algama said that they are “greatly disappointed and concerned” by the statements made by Bedi and added that Sri Lanka Cricket sincerely believes that appropriate action should be taken by the authorities to prevent such incidents from recurring.

Hinting at possible legal action by the spinner, Algama said “Sri Lanka Cricket will support any and all efforts by Muralitharan to take corrective action in the matter” in a written statement sent to “Daily Mirror”, referring to our lead story yesterday, where Bedi was quoted.“While SLC respects the right of individuals to form their own opinion regarding the matter of illegal bowling actions; we feel that Mr.Bedi's comments are defamatory and are intended to cause harm to Mr.Muralitharan's reputation, his achievements and also disparages the ICC's ruling on the said matter.” Algama added.

Explaining the matter further, Algama stated “Mr.Muralitharan's bowling action has been scrutinized time and again by bowling experts, bio-mechanical experts and medical experts and has been found to be within the laws of the game. Furthermore, the ICC has also set in place procedures that deal with suspected illegal actions. Mr. Bedi should be aware of these procedures and processes.”

“It is irresponsible for a person of Mr.Bedi's stature in the game to make such public comments where he has clearly attacked the personal integrity of Mr.Muralitharan and the technical competency of the ICC. Mr.Bedi has needlessly, unfairly and deliberately targeted Mr.Muralitharan in his vituperative outburst.” Algama’s statement added.

Murali will take legal action against Bedi says manager

Muttiah Muralitharan’s manager Kushil Gunasekara in a statement to “Daily Mirror” yesterday said that the champion spinner will take legal action against Bedi’s comments shortly. Following is Gunasekara’s statement.

I refer to the media publication that appeared in the Daily Mirror of 9th August 2007 pertaining to the repulsive comments made by Mr Bishan Singh Bedi which is of a very serious defamatory nature to bring disrepute and tarnish the impressive image of Mr Muttiah Muralidaran.

It is no surprise that the ugly behaviour and unjustified allegations made by Mr Bishan Singh Bedi depicting more of a personal attack coincides with Murali’s attempt to achieve the highest number of test wickets by any bowler in the history of the game in the not too distant future.

The legal team of Mr Muttiah Muralidaran will shortly institute legal action against Mr Bishan Singh Bedi in view of the sordid and ghastly manner in which he has condemned by way of a severe character assassination to undermine Mr Muttiah Muralidaran’s magical art of spin bowling.

Aussie crowds embarrass Moody

Tom Moody, the former Sri Lanka coach, said he was embarrassed by the derogatory reaction and negative attention directed towards Muttiah Muralitharan by Australian crowds. Muralitharan's unorthodox bowling action came under scrutiny in Australia, where he was no-balled for a suspect action on two tours.

The treatment meted out by the crowds in reaction to these on-field episodes prompted him to boycott Sri Lanka's 2004 tour to Australia. John Howard, the Australian prime minister, joined the clamour by labelling Muralitharan a "chucker".

"As an Australian when I have been with the Sri Lankan team in Australia, or playing against them in the World Cup, it's the only situation we find in the whole of the cricketing world where we have this disgraceful slant on a cricketer," Moody told The Australian.

"My take on it, and I hope I'm right, and I've shared this with Murali, is that it's Australia's nature to show that response in a way of respect and acknowledgement of someone who is pretty special and unique".

Moody, who has taken up a coaching role with Western Australia, puts this attitude down to the competition between Muralitharan and Shane Warne, who finished his career as the world's leading wicket-taker with 708 Test victims. Muralitharan is second in the all-time list with 674 dismissals.

"They're protecting their own," Moody said. "Australia has produced the greatest legspinner of all time and Australians are very proud of that. There's that constant comparison between Warne and Murali, but I just think you cannot even begin to try and compare the two."

Muralitharan was first no-balled by Darrell Hair in the 1995 Boxing Day Test and Ross Emerson also called him in an ODI at Adelaide four years later. When the Sri Lankans walked off the field after the second incident, only an intervention by the respective boards and the ICC saved the tour.

Muralitharan's action was subsequently cleared under the ICC's 15-degree rule. He has toured Australia since his 2004 boycott and looks set to visit Australia again in November for a two-Test series.

Afridi hammers Bandara & Prasanna combination

Sri Lanka Lost the match, but it was a real thrilling batting display by Shahid Afridi after a long time. Despite the fact that, his innings took the match away from Sri Lanka, I really enjoyed his spirit.

At one point, Sri Lanka was slowly taking control of the match, by strangling the Pakistani run rate, but all of a sudden Afridi came out of his crease repeatedly, and hit 32 runs in a one over by Malinga Bandara. Four off the first ball, followed by another in the second ball. Then Afridi thought fours are not big enough. He jumped out of his crease like a tiger approaching his pray, and hit Malinga Bandara for 4 consecutive sixes off next 4 balls of the over. Just brilliant as that!

Sri Lankan wicket keeper, Prasanna Jayawardena was acting as a dummy behind the wicket. With Afridi aggressively coming out of the crease, it was very predictable he’s going to do it for every next ball. But Prasanna, as the wicket keeper never communicated with the bowler, and formulate a plan to get his out stumped.

Had it been Murali and sangakkara combination, or Warne and Healy (Or Warne and Gilchrist) combination, would they allow a batsman to come out of the crease for 6 or 8 balls in a row like that?

We’ve seen in many occasions, when batsmen coming out of crease so attackingly, Sanga walks into Murali and have a little word. (Or else, scream at Murali in Sinhala “Moo eliyata enawa wedi… Kakula paththen dala balamu”). 99% of the time we see the batsman get out stumped after such a conversation between Murali and Sanga. But Bandara and Prasanna, never worried to coordinate like that.

I know we can’t blame them for that, because experience plays a major roll their. They would have taken this as a learning opportunity. Prasanna will have to keep wicket for Murali in test matches for a foreseeable future, so he has to get his approach to the game corrected as soon as possible. We know in modern day cricket, wicket keepers play a main roll in keeping the momentum of the fielding team, and strategizing the bowling effort. But we never saw that contribution from Prasanna yesterday.

All in all, it was very evident that we missed Murali and Sanga a lot. Loosing 4 player from the World Cup squad, would have affected the Sri Lankan performance, but the whole idea of this tournament was to bring out the young players. So, let’s hope even if we lost the match, young players gathered some experience. But the other thing our players have to keep in mind is, “you promised to win this tournament for Moody”.

All credit to Afridi and Pakistan. It was a great come back after getting out of the world cup so early.

Did ICC really Changed the Rule Books to Legalize Murali's Action?

As the "squash ball controversy" is heating up the cricket world phenomenally, some Aussies are rubbing some old wounds by dragging in the Murali-Hair controversy into this. Some Aussies with extraordinary loss of "short & medium term memory", are accusing "ICC changed the rules of throwing, to accommodate Murali's action". And they further accuse, ICC did this under the pressure from Sri Lanka and the Sub Continent.

It's really amazing to see how these people tend to forget the facts so quickly. Some one has to speak up and remind these people the facts they try to forget.

History of The Issue

Let's just go back to the history. At the time of Murali-Hair affair took place in 1995, it was the duty of on-field umpires to judge a delivery as illegal or "thrown" on with visual judgment alone. The accepted way of doing this was, the square leg umpire to watch the bowlers arm and make the judgment. Because the head umpire (standing behind the non-strikers wicket) is assigned with a duty to watching the bowlers front leg for over stepping, at the point of ball leaving the bowlers hand. No human being could watch a bowlers front leg, and the elbow positioning of the bowler, at a same instance when the ball is delivered.

But Australian umpire Darrel Hair did that miracle. He re-written the history book, as the first umpire in the history of cricket, to call a bowler for throwing while standing in the head umpire's position. So, it was very clear that Mr. Hair was deliberate of calling Murali for throwing, and therefore he forgot that "throwing" should be called by the square leg umpire.

This issue was raised before the ICC by the Sri Lanka Cricket Board, and ICC demanded an investigation into Murali's action. In an biomechanical test done with Murali's hand, it was revealed that his elbow had an unusual tilt at his birth. This tilt, would have actually helped Murali in turning the ball, but it was nothing purposely adjusted by Murali.

Biomechanical Test in 2004 ICC Champions Trophy

With the topic of "throwing" becoming a hot topic in Cricket World, during late 90's, ICC conducted a biomechanical test, using sophisticated technology. And, in those tests it was discovered that it is virtually impossible for the human arm to legally "bowl" the ball without any flex of the elbow, more than 15 degrees. The old law allowed to bend the elbow 10 degrees for fast bowlers, 7.5 degrees for medium pacers , and 5 degrees for spin bowlers. Thus according to the old laws, "legal" bowling would be practically impossible for any human being, so some thing had to be done.

After the Muralitharan issue, the ICC carried out a test on all bowlers through video footage during the 2004 Champions Trophy in England. The test brought up some startling results: ninety-nine percent of all bowlers tested were found to flex their elbow to some degree, which was often much greater than the limit set at the time. According to this test, all the Australian bowlers in 2004 Champions Trophy were also chuckers. Looking at some of the old video footages of some great Australian fast bowlers in the past, it was revealed that all of them were chuckers according to this old law.

Change of Rules

It was realized that 99% of the modern day bowlers are chuckers, under the old law of "throwing". So, what can ICC do? Ban all the bowlers? Including Shane Warne, McGrath and Shaun Pollock? The only way forward for ICC was to change the rules.

After a review by an expert panel, the ICC decided to raise the limit to 15 degrees for all bowlers. This limit was chosen as the ICC believed that any flexing of the elbow above 15 degrees would be visibly noticeable.

So, I guess this summarize the whole story. The arguments of some pathetic Australian fans are completely invalid. ICC did not changed the rules to accommodate Murali's action. They did change the rules, after they realized that the old rules were wrong, and it's humanly impossible to be abide by those rules (for 99% of the bowlers, to be precise. Including Shane Warne. Not only Murali).