da marjack bet： The issue of chucking divides opinions, but a clear verdict emerged from apanel of former cricketers instituted by Wisden Asia Cricket: five out ofseven members came out in favour of handing the matter back to the umpires
Wisden Cricinfo staff08-Jun-2004
It needed technology to spot Shoaib Akhtar’s hyperextension. Should more technology be used to resolve the chucking issue?© AFP
The issue of chucking divides opinions, but a clear verdict emerged from apanel of former cricketers instituted by Wisden Asia Cricket: five out ofseven members came out in favour of handing the matter back to the umpires.To the question whether a throw should be called by an umpire, there wasonly one categorical no and a conditional one.Eleven questions covering a range of issues relating to chucking were putto a panel comprising Greg Chappell, Peter Roebuck, Bob Woolmer, SidathWettimuny, Rameez Raja, Sanjay Manjrekar and a current international batsman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The answers, published in the June issue of the magazine, are amixture of the radical and the expected.Chappell, Manjrekar, and the current player were clear that if the transgression was obvious, the umpireshould call, whereas Wettimuny, while agreeing that “the umpire should beable to call a bowler who is clearly and purposefully breaking the law bythrowing”, said that the umpire should have access to technology todetermine a throw.Woolmer was categorically against the umpire calling. “The umpire has too muchelse to do,” he said and went on to suggest: “The bowler should be takenthrough a testing protocol [after being reported by the umpires] using adigital camera in the middle without his knowledge.”Chappell felt that there was a need to have a broader definition of whatconstituted a throw. Using an inverted argument Chappell said, “It may bebest to define what constitutes a fair delivery rather than what is athrow, and move forward from there.” While Woolmer agreed with Chappell, Roebuck and Wettimuny felt that thelaw was fine at the moment. “Unless there is any scientific evidence to thecontrary,” said Wettimuny, “there is no need for a change.”All barring Chappell were happy with the current reporting structure butmany felt that the rehabilitation process needed to be tightened. Accordingto Woolmer, “Rehab of older bowlers is tough and time-consuming, and oftenit falls down when the bowler resorts to his old action in the effort to geta wicket.” The current batsman was against the matter being reported to thehome board and said, “Home boards have a vested interest. It should go to acentral authority.”The question regarding whether the umpire must call the throw also evoked mixedreactions. Rameez was the only one who felt that itwas unfair to report the bowlers based on naked-eye judgement. “Technologyis there to be used. The technology saved Shoaib Akhtar because it spottedhis hyperextension. It showed that there was a problem with Shabbir Ahmed’saction.” But Manjrekar felt that a goodumpire would be able to spot a bowler taking unfair advantage.The panel was also asked what its take was on the number of bowlers shieldedby medical alibis. The current batsman said that having a physicaldeformity was no excuse. “If a batsman has defective eyesight, you don’tmake a special rule for him.” But Woolmer and Rameez were willing to make anexception for the cases that involved hyperextension. “I have no problem asthe arm bends back past the vertical. In the case of a thrower it is clearlydifferent, where the arm is jerked through.”Notwithstanding all the differing opinions, there were a few common threadsthat spanned the survey. All recognised the limitations of the currenttechnology for testing and were also critical of the law which allowed different tolerance limits for different types of bowlers. Chappell commented: “I would expect that the forces on the bowlingarm are not dissimilar for most bowlers so the tolerances should be thesame.”Wisden Asia Cricket