Enough rope, it's time for the stick

The new rules are plain and easy to follow © Getty Images Enlarge

The silence feels almost eerie, but perhaps there was nothing left to say. A couple of weeks ago, Wasim Akram nonchalantly pronounced the ICC as having "gone mad". It was a superb quote, a headline writer's dream, and it had to be taken in the context it was spoken.

But despite its disdainful extremeness, it articulated the exasperation and the befuddlement felt by a large section of the cricket community over the ICC's handling of the chucking issue. And when, last Saturday, the ICC finally made official an earlier proposal to set a uniform tolerance level of 15-degrees for all bowlers, it was met with deafening silence from those who had been most vocal in their criticism. It was almost as if "Who cares?"

Everyone who cares about the game should. This change of law, arrived at after a few years of groping, fumbling and soul-searching, is potentially seminal. There is the danger of it blowing up in the face in the hands of cynical and callous administrators. If they chose to, they could use it as a ruse to obfuscate and regularise all manner of transgressions. But that's taking the bleak view. However suspiciously we might regard cricket administrators, there is reason enough to believe that this change is a sincere and honest attempt at solving one of the most chronic and ticklish problems the game has faced. It falls upon those who still quibble to come up with a better and more workable solution. In the light of scientific research, leaving it solely to naked-eye judgment of the umpires is just not an option.

It might still grate with the purist that the acceptance of any level of arm-straightening is a distortion of one of the fundamental tenets of the game. More so in the case of the doosra which, it's now widely accepted, cannot be bowled without some straightening of the arm. The 15-degree tolerance level, it can be argued with some justification, is a licence to contravene the bowling norms deliberately - as opposed to an involuntary straightening of the arm, which was held out as the primary cause for the relaxation of the norms in the first place.

But setting different tolerance levels for different kinds of bowlers was always likely to get the ICC mired in endless controversies. That a degree of arm-straightening is an inevitable biomechanical action while bowling has now been established. To differentiate between fast bowlers, medium-pacers and spinners would only further complicate the issue. Not all spinners bowl at the same pace, many fast bowlers sometime bowl at medium-pace and, as pointed out by some of the boffins, Muttiah Muralitharan's arm-speed was as quick as a fast bowler's. A uniform law is more easily understood and more easily applied.

Like many other cricket lovers, I have felt ambivalent towards the doosra. Undoubtedly, it enriched cricket. By lending a touch of mystique to offspin, long regarded as the vanilla art, the doosra rescued it from slipping into obscurity in the face of heavy bats. But the smell of chucking didn't quite feel right. Now, in the light of new legislation, the doosra can be enjoyed for what it is: a great piece of deception. God knows, bowlers need empowerment.

But more importantly, the new regulations allow administrators to crack down on illegal bowling actions without being accused of discrimination. By setting clear guidelines and removing subjective opinion, the ICC has equipped itself to deal with chuckers in a transparently decisive manner. The period for review and rehabilitation is down from six weeks to 21 days, and crucially this process will now be conducted under the direct supervision of the ICC rather than the home board.

There is ground to believe that there are a number of bowlers who straighten their arms much beyond the prescribed levels. They should be shown no mercy, regardless of their standing in the game. Bowlers have got enough rope now, it's also time to bring out the stick.

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Sambit Bal is the editor of Cricinfo in India and of Wisden Asia Cricket magazine.