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).

Sri Lanka Cricket to question the legality of Gilly's "Hidden Ball" in next ICC Meeting

The longest ever cricket world cup took 47 days to conclude with a dramatic final between Australia and Sri Lanka, but yet it's not all over. Adam Gilchrist's "Squashed innings" which scored 149 off just 104 balls, while all the other Australian batsmen were struggling to score more than run a ball is now the hottest topic in the cricket world. This adds as yet another incident to the Australia's long history of "cheating in cricket", which includes the famous "under arm last ball" by Trevor Chapel, under the advice of then captain Greg Chapel, in an ODI against New Zealand.



So far, the legality of Gilly's innings was questioned by only the cricket fans and by few members of the blogging community. There's enough evidence to say that what Gilly did was illegal. A Squash ball cannot be a cricketing equipment, under any law either in Cricket law books or Squash law books. Australian cricket blogger JC, indirectly admitted that "a squash ball won the world cup for their country". All independent analysts (I mean, independent from Australia) agree that the facts raised by churumuri and some of the commenters in that thread, are un deniable. If you are an Australian, it would be hard to swallow most of the facts raised their. It's natural!

But what can a blogging community and fans do about this matter? Nothing but persuading the officials to take some action. I did the exact thing, by writing to some of the leading press and electronic media in Sri Lanka, to build a pressure on Sri Lanka Cricket, to bring this matter up. Then I realized I'm not alone! There were thousands of letters to editors, to some of the leading newspapers in Sri Lanka regarding this issue.

One such cricket fan write to The Island and says "Gilchrist has openly explained that it helped his grip and that means he has used an external substance other than those provided to enhance his batting. We are also perturbed at the Australians’ openly floundering the match rules and getting away. Sri Lanka feel robbed and rightfully so. You may feel that some of this grumbling is due to that"

Now the good news from cricket's point of view is, Australia is not going to get away this time. Sri Lanka Cricket's interim committee official, K. Mathivathan told The Island today that Sri Lanka Cricket will take this as a serious issue, and take the matter to net ICC meeting scheduled to June. He further added "It's unethical for Adam to do that, and laws could be brought to prevent doing such things in the future"

So, the cricket fans around the world now can be assured that Aussies will not be allow to just cheat like this and get away with it easily. But I personally, don't like the argument that the World Cup should be taken away from the Aussies, or the final should be played again. All in all Aussies have now won the world cup (even if it was by cheating), and now it's theirs for another 4 years. So let them posses it, break it or do what ever they want to do with it. What we want as cricket fans is justice. We want a clear statement from ICC that "It is illegal to use squash balls in cricket matches, and what Adam Gilchrist did was similar to what Ben Johnson did in 1988 Olympics"

Australian Dominance in Cricket. Good or Bad?

It’s being highly debated in the media that “whether Australia’s dominance in modern day cricket is good for the game or not?” I’ve seen many press articles and TV talk shows debating this topic, and I’ve seen so many former players insisting on, it’s bad for the game. Most of these people are in the opinion that “Australia should come down, so that the other countries will have a fair chance of catching them”.

I think this is rubbish. What Australia has achieved in cricket today, is the result of careful planning of their system for years. I believe their planning started on the day they failed to make it to the semi finals of a world cup held at home (1992). That day, they’ve realized there’s something seriously to think about Australian cricket. And, through their prestigious cricket academy, and the highly competitive domestic tournament they started planning to dominate the cricketing world in the next decade. The results started to come during the later part of the 90’s, especially towards 1999. Ever since then, they haven’t looked back. When a one class player get retired, they have 3 players to replace him!. Ricky Ponting, started his career as the “replacement” for David Boon. But today, Ponting has surpassed the fellow Tasmanian by a huge margin. So, what could we expect from the replacement of McGrath or Warne? Definitely not anything in lower quality than them.

So, if the rest of the world remain complaining about “invincibility” of the Australians, and do nothing other than expecting Aussies to come down, that won’t definitely be in the favor of this game. What the rest of the world should do is try to work hard, to get closer to Aussies. Not to expect them to come down.

Business of Cricket

Some one has mentioned in one of my posts, “Aussies take cricket as a business; not as a game”. I 100% agree with this. For Aussies, the game of cricket is not a “game” anymore. It’s a business operation for them. They have adopt all the business management principles into this game. Business management Concepts like “Zero defects” and “Systems Approach” are clearly visible in the Aussies game plan. Each player of the team are like executives. They’ve been assigned a “job to do” (Do they have cubicles too?) and they have to work hard to do the job better every day. There should be “zero defects” in the final product. Extensive usage of technology, and video footages make them perfect “business executives”. It’s said, that Matt Hayden was watching a video footage of Murali, even on his flight to Grenada for the Super 8 match against Sri Lanka. That’s ho the Aussies make them “perfect”.

The rest of the world have to catch up. Soon.

But the unfortunate thing about these recent developments is, it will degrade the natural spirit of this age old game. Some people are trying to compare the current Australian team with the Clive Lloyd’s great West Indian team in the 70’s. I’m totally against that comparison. Windies in 70’s dominated the game with their natural ability, and their innovative approach of playing the game. The rule of “Ball is there to be hit” was the greatest innovation by the Windies those days. And that revolutionized the game of cricket, and inspired such great cricketers like Dulip Mendis, Javed Miandad, Aravinda De Silva, Sachin Tendulkar, Inzamam Ul Haq and Sanath Jayasuriya in the sub continent. These are the players who took the “west Indian style of cricket” to rest of the world, and broke the west Indian monopoly in cricket. The current “Australian Style” is no way near the natural spirit of cricket, like that “West Indian style”. The Australian style is a complete mechanism of programming human beings to deliver “results”. Id Clive Llyod’s 70’s Windies team had the facilities that are given to the current Australian team, the result would be incredible.

What ever said and done, the fact remains “Australia is driving the game of cricket at the moment”. The rest of the world will have to catch them soon.

If you look at last 4 world cups, it was Australia who played the India Subcontinent in the finals. Australia secured their place in the finals with their highly professional approach to the game, and India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka reached the finals in these 4 world cups with their natural ability and raw talents, and based on the form at the time the world cup being played. (Especially Sri Lanka and Pakistan. India too, take a “business approach” to the game some times) So what about the other countries? What do them lacking? Natural ability or the professional approach?

ICC have to take a serious look into this, and make sure the countries like Kenya, Ireland and Canada will stay in the game with the hope of winning a World Cup soon.

If the young players in these countries start to think that “No matter how good we play, it’s always going to be Australia and Subcontinent in the final, and Australia winning in the end”, then its not going to be good for the game of cricket anymore. ICC and the national governing bodies of the game, should take serious actions to upgrade the quality of the game in all these countries (Including England and West Indies), and make them competitive against Australia. At the same time, they should make sure that the game is not getting “too much mechanical” as well.