ICC to speed up bowling-review process

The ICC has agreed to the Sri Lankan board's request to hurry up their bowling-review process. After discussions at the ICC's annual conference, representatives from the Sri Lankan board challenged the ICC on how they currently deal with illegal bowling actions.

The result of the discussions was that the ICC will speed up the process of looking at illegal actions as far as they can, as long as it doesn't hinder the Cricket Committee and the Chief Executives' Committee, the groups which will specifically be researching these issues.

The ICC has promised to look further into the problem of throwing during the Champions Trophy in England this September. After that, members of the Cricket Committee, including the former cricketers Tim May, Aravinda de Silva and Angus Fraser, will have another look at how the current process of reviewing bowling actions is dealt with.

The Sri Lankan board's request came in response to the ICC's recent handling of Muttiah Muralitharan's action. After Murali was put through a series of high-tech tests at the University of Western Australia earlier this year, it was confirmed that when he bowled the doosra his elbow did exceed the permitted five-degree tolerance level for spinners. However, Bruce Elliott, the biomechanics expert who led the testing, then called for further research into the setting of tolerance levels for bowlers.

As a result, Murali escaped any punishment and was allowed to continue bowling, although he was advised not to deliver any doosras. He went on to break Courtney Walsh's Test-wickets record during Sri Lanka's tour of Zimbabwe. However, his decision not to tour Australia for personal reasons - not unconnected with Aussie disapproval of his bowling action, not least from their prime minister John Howard - has put his position in danger, with Shane Warne hot on his heels only seven wickets behind going into the second Test against Sri Lanka at Cairns.

The ICC's stand on throwing has been scrutinised, and its tolerance levels for throwing have been criticised by Elliott, who believes that the limits are set on illogical data. He said that "the five-degrees [rule] is based on illogical data because they've just tested fast bowlers and assumed that there is some relationship between fast bowlers and spin bowlers. Fifteen degrees is the right angle for fast bowlers and you probably should come down to 10 degrees for spin bowlers."

While Elliott's suggestion would ensure that fewer bowlers are reported for throwing, a current player told Wisden Asia Cricket that even under the current method of reporting a bowler, too few bowlers were called. The batsman went on to say that the degree of extension for the bowlers had to be on a lower scale and that special allowances should not be made for bowlers with deformities, as there were no such provisions for the batsmen.

But of late, what has become even clearer is that most bowlers bend and straighten their arm to a certain degree, which goes against the traditional definition of a legal delivery. Resolving this issue is what the ICC's goal is, come September.