CMJ: Muralitharan's elbow and Scarborough (7 Sep 1998)

7 September 1998

More power to mesmerising Muralitharan's elbow

Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

IT WAS a shame that Muttiah Muralitharan's mesmerising performance in the Oval Test - 16 wickets for 220 in the match, nine for 65 in the second innings - should have been followed by a revival of the debate about his action, but hardly surprising, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

England's batsmen have been tested this season by the two most charmingly eccentric spin bowlers in international cricket. If Paul Adams had been as successful as Muralitharan, what is the betting that someone would have accused him, obliquely or otherwise, of throwing?

Clearly a line has to be drawn even for spin bowlers, but there should surely be less concern about them than there is if a fast bowler breaks the law sufficiently to threaten the batsman's safety. Yet there will be three fast bowlers operating in county cricket this week who are commonly believed to throw their bouncers. None of them will be called.

It is certainly possible to turn a ball more than normal by throwing it like a dart, as they say Jimmy Burke of Australia, never a front-line bowler, used to do. The last man before Muralitharan to take eight wickets in a Test against England for Sri Lanka, K P J Warnaweera, certainly seemed from a distance to have a suspect jerk about his action.

The law, as rephrased in the wake of various infamous chuckers of the late 1950s, precludes a bowler from straightening the arm, partially or completely, immediately before he delivers the ball. It is possible to argue not only that Muralitharan (permanently bent elbow and double-jointed wrist notwithstanding) pushes the definition close by the vigour with which he spins the ball by his late twist of the wrist, but also that almost any bowler, finger or wrist spinner, who gives the ball a real tweak, sails very close to the wind.

IN LESS complicated days, when three-day cricket was played on uncovered pitches, five Tests in a summer were sufficient and the limited-overs, one-day match was unborn, the Scarborough Festival was one of the highlights of the later stages of the cricket season. Its essence was serious cricket with a light-hearted, end-of-season touch, played by many of the best and most entertaining English players and always involving the touring side.

The festival has fallen upon relatively hard times because of all the alternative cricket and the resort has lost its allure for holiday-makers who have overseas trips as an alternative. Perhaps, however, there is a chance of reviving the festival with a bit of innovative thinking.

It would be hard in a crowded season to find players of the necessary calibre and it might be that they would largely have to be taken from the ranks of the recently retired. But if the organisers could get a television company interested and the press too, it would be an attractive idea to test various theories about how the game could be improved by trying them out at Scarborough in seriously contested matches, preferably with prize-money.

Every season produces its controversies and talking points and usually a variety of remedies for perceived ills and shortcomings. This year, for example, we have had a succession of umpiring mistakes during the Test matches, cruelly exposed by television slow-motion replays. Greater use of technology to aid the umpires is the suggested solution. Very well, try it out at Scarborough with as many cameras, computers and umpires as are required.

Give a couple of batsmen a bat with a built-in chip which can record without question whether the ball has been hit. See how long it takes to supply the third umpire with clear, magnified replays of bat-pad incidents or disputed catches. See whether it is feasible for umpires in the middle to carry pocket-sized monitors. Even experiment with instant computer pictures after appeals for lbw. Only when such things are tried under match conditions can any intelligent conclusions be drawn about how they would translate to truly competitive games.

Other ideas might be tested, with plenty of advance publicity to attract inquisitive spectators. There was a considerable amount of defensive bowling wide of the off stump in the Anglo-South African series which in one-day matches would be called wide. Why not instruct the umpires in the experimental matches to apply the one-day interpretation of a wide ball? Again, there are those who feel that a number of contentious decisions would be avoided if batsmen could no longer be out caught off a glove: so try a few matches with catches allowed only if the ball has touched the bat. Logically, runs scored off the gloves would be extras.

No law has changed more than No 36, lbw. Some would go back to the experiment started in 1929 that a batsman can be lbw even if the ball has hit his bat or hand before his pad. Others would try allowing lbws for balls pitched outside the leg stump provided they have been bowled from the opposite angle, i.e. round the wicket from a left-arm bowler, over it from a right-arm leg spinner. If only for novelty value, Scarborough could test both ideas again.

Various ideas to improve one-day games might also be tried: subtracting runs from a total when a wicket falls, for example, or Sir Tim Rice's idea to prevent NatWest finals from being one-sided, namely for Side A to bat for 30 overs, Side B to follow with a full 60 and Side A then to finish the match with the second half of their innings.

If he can find the time after launching his new version of Aida with Sir Elton John (Verdi and Ghislanzoni have had their day it seems), perhaps Sir Tim, as president of Scarborough, can come up with a programme of matches to tickle the curiosity of players, spectators and administrators.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)