'Most bowlers chuck to some extent'

The chucking controversy has raised its ugly head again, with West Indian fast bowler Jermaine Lawson becoming the latest bowler to be reported to the International Cricket Council for a suspect action.

This action of match referee Mike Proctor and umpires David Shepherd and S Venkataraghavan has once again brought into the limelight those bowlers who were earlier castigated and reported to the ICC for suspect actions.

Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar and Sri Lankan offspinner Muthiah Muralitharan have been the two biggest suspects, besides Australian fast bowler Brett Lee, who have raised more than the proverbial eyebrow with their actions.

Biomechanics expert Darryl Foster, who worked as consulting coach with the Sri Lankan and Pakistani teams, defends Murali and Akhtar in an interview with Faisal Shariff. Excerpts:

Do you think Jermaine Lawson's action is suspect?

I think the umpires have done the right thing and had a look at some slow-motion shots when they came off the ground with the match referee. And I think there is a little bit of straightening going on from when the bowling arm is horizontal to release. I think it's only fair to everybody in the game that there is further work done on his action.

This is a never-ending problem. Every team seems to have one bowler with a suspect action. You worked closely with Pakistani speedster Shoaib Akhtar. Do you think he has a suspect action?

You have got to distinguish Muthiah Muralitharan and Shoaib Akhtar against any so-called normal bowlers. Murali, for one, has got a disability where his right arm is permanently flexed at 38 degrees and he can't do anything about that. He was born with it. Now, when Murali bowls, he does not alter that angle of his arm whatsoever. It looks bad to the naked eye, but when you get it in three-dimensional analysis Murali's angle of that arm does not change; therefore it is not chucking.

Now, Shoaib is another boy that has got a disability. He has got hypermobile joints all over his body. Every joint in Shoaib's body has been tested by a specialist who has announced that he is hypermobile; and we have medical certificates along those lines.

Now, the hypermobility or hyperextension you see on Shoaib's arm when he is bowling, he cannot avoid unless you put braces on his arms. That's just the way the ligament structures are in his elbow joints that he cannot control that hyperextension.

So, again, you are dealing with two boys there who have physical disabilities and according to all the three-dimensional analysis both of them do not chuck under the meaning of the rule.

But don't you think that if they are suffering from physical disabilities, then international cricket isn't really the place for them? They should probably be playing...

Well, what are you saying? Are you saying they should be put in a circus or something? I mean, I think if people have that attitude, then I would think that those boys would be able to take the ICC or anybody to court and say they are being prevented from playing a game of cricket because they were born with a disability.

But...

I don't think that's the way to go. I think you had their actions examined, it should be broadcast around the world. The ICC should let every umpire check the reports done from the university here and be satisfied with the results.

I am not specifically interested what Bishen Bedi said. I have great respect for the man. But he is not in possession of the evidence that we see. I would love Bishen Bedi to come over and we can show exactly what's been done and then he perhaps wouldn't be so critical of Muralitharan. Sounds like a little bit of jealousy on Bishen Bedi's part to me.

Don't you think saying that they suffer from a physical disability is advantageous to them and makes it unfair for the other cricketers?

Why is it an advantage to Muralitharan that he has got a permanently bent arm? Why is it an advantage? I wouldn't have thought it is an advantage at all.

You mean to say that if he didn't have that 38 degree bend, he would have gone on and taken more wickets?

No, I don't say take more wickets. I don't see that he would have taken any fewer wickets. I mean, Muralitharan as well as having that disability with his elbow joint has got a very hypermobile wrist joint. Now that may be because when he was born with his permanently flexed arm he used his hands more and has got a very hyper, very mobile wrist joint. Now you know the good law. And you know, I think Murali is just taking the best advantage of what he was given, what he was born with. I don't know whether he would take more wickets. He might take less. [But] he will still be a great bowler whatever he bowls with.

Do you think ICC as the governing body has done enough to address this issue of chucking?

Probably not. I am not convinced they have. I think people have to got to get off the Murali and Shoaib thing. They are completely different cases as far as I see with respect to Jermaine Lawson or Brett Lee or anybody else that they are saying might be suspicious. Michael Holding is saying that there are seven or eight bowlers around the world. Well, I don't know who those seven or eight bowlers are. Maybe it is Harbhajan Singh, for all I know. Who is he talking about?

There is a theory that most offspinners can chuck the odd delivery if they want to actually chuck it. So I don't know who he is talking about. I certainly don't think the ICC has done enough. But I think there has been enough chatter about Muralitharan and Shoaib Akhtar who I think are not normal and I would be very disappointed in any umpire that didn't think there was something wrong with Murali's action to the naked eye or anybody's eye and I would be certainly disappointed they didn't think the same with Shoaib.

But all I can tell you with all the work that has been done with them under three-dimensional analysis, both of those fellows are in the clear as far as we are concerned.

Is there any solution? What do you think should be done to bowlers who have a suspect action?

I think it's a little bit hard to let somebody continue playing for six weeks or whatever it happens to be in the meantime. One of the things that I think has happened is that a lot of people have been neglected. There was a paper given at the Sports Science Conference just before the World Cup in Cape Town. In this particular paper, the researchers examined the three-dimensional analysis of 34 deliveries from fast bowlers from five different nations -- I am not saying who they are -- and they subjected them to 3-D analysis, which is the only way to actually tell whether the bowler is chucking. You can't tell from the naked eye, you can't tell from a TV monitor either.

Now, in these 34 deliveries, they found that there was elbow straightening in all deliveries, in every delivery that was bowled, and the range was from 3 degrees to 22 degrees.

Now, I think Lawson fits in there somewhere. I am convinced that most bowlers around the world, there is a little bit of straightening going on. Now the ICC, I believe, and I haven't got any references, but the ICC allows a tolerance of 10 degrees of straightening, which is something that I was not aware of.

So I think there is a problem. The ICC is not really paying attention to some of the work that is being done. So, I just think they probably got to look into it and appoint an expert panel. I don't think necessarily the same fast-bowling panel that they appointed earlier, but an expert panel.

I think it's easy to identify a bowler like Lawson who has got problems, if he has got problems. I am not saying one way or the other. I think he certainly looks as if he needs further examination. But the next thing is, how do you remedy it, how do you fix it, and that's where I think we have got no idea how do we go about making sure about bowlers who do straighten their arms between horizontal and ball release. How do we go about getting them to fix it, that to me is a problem.

Isn't it worrying that Shoaib Akhtar and Muthiah Muralitharan are role models? Shoaib Akhtar surely is someone who kids are looking to model their bowling on. Isn't that a scary scenario?

Well, unless the kids have got hypermobile joints all over their body, or unless the kid is born with his forearm (afflexed) to his upper arm at 38 degrees, I am afraid they are not gonna be able to do it.

I mean, you can argue your line; it seems to be an Indian line that people with disability should not play sports; if that's your line then you are perfectly able to push that line. That's not the way that I see it.