Murali's bowling action - What do Australian umpires see different (12 December 1998)

12 December 1998

Murali's bowling action - What do Australian umpires see different

By Sa'adi Thawfeeq

If by any chance Muthiah Muralitharan is no-balled for throwing by an Australian umpire (now that Darrel Hair has stood down) during next month's Carlton and United World Series Cup competition, will that mean that 40 other umpires have been wrong?

Since that traumatic tour of Australia in 1995-96 when Muralitharan was no-balled seven times during the Melbourne Test against Australia by Hair and further humiliated by Ross Emerson (standing in his first match) ten days later in a World Series Cup match against West Indies at Brisbane, the ace off-spinner has gone onto represent his country in 19 Tests and 66 one-day internationals in all countries except Australia and Zimbabwe, without his bowling action being questioned.

In that period, a total of 40 international umpires (including an Australian) have officiated against him and found nothing wrong (see list of umpires).

The question that arises from here is why is it that when Muralitharan bowls in Australia that the umpires raise doubts about his bowling action.

There is nothing in the laws of the game to stop an umpire from no-balling a bowler, if in his opinion, he thinks the delivery is not fair.

But when some of the top umpires in the game, including those in the International Cricket Council (ICC) panel have passed judgment on Muralitharan at some stage during the past three years, there has to be something bordering on premeditation when it comes to Australia, to have different opinions about his action.

To assume the ICC has cleared Muralitharan's bowling action and as a result, he cannot be called for throwing by any umpire, is entirely misleading. The ICC has at no time cleared Muralitharan nor will they do so for any bowler for that matter. If they can do that, then Law 24.2 dealing with Fair Delivery - The Arm, becomes redundant and umpires can no longer be the sole judges of fair and unfair play.

All what the ICC has done in Muralitharan's case is accept the evidence provided by the doctors and biomechanics supporting Muralitharan that he has a deformity in his bowling arm, and passed it on to the respective Cricket Boards and umpires.

But what has worried the Sri Lanka Cricket Board following Hair's remarks on Muralitharan is that the amendment the ICC has made to Law 24.2 allows an umpire to stop a bowler from bowling again in the same innings, after the third warning.

The amendment to Law 24.2 took effect from September 1, 1997. But prior to that, the law read: "For a delivery to be fair the ball must be bowled, not thrown. If either umpire is not entirely satisfied with the absolute fairness of a delivery in this repect he shall call and signal 'no-ball' instantly upon delivery".

This law allowed a captain to continue to bowl a bowler despite him being no-balled by the umpire. It happened at Brisbane in January 1996, when acting captain Aravinda de Silva persisted with Muralitharan after he was no-balled repeatedly by umpire Ross Emerson (even when he resorted to bowling leg-breaks) in the World Series Cup game against West Indies. Only frantic calls from the dressing room prompted the bowler's removal, reported 'Wisden'.

To prevent such incidents happening in future, the ICC introduced the following clause:

Law 24.2 shall apply with the following: "The umpires shall also adopt the procedures of caution, final warning, action against the bowler and reporting as set out in Law 42.8".

Law 42.8 states: "In the event of such unfair bowling, the umpire at the bowler's end shall adopt the following procedure:

Muralitharan would have been spared of all the blushes and humiliation had the Sri Lanka Cricket Board acted on the information provided by the ICC on the bowler prior to him being called. At the height of the Muralitharan controversy in Australia, the ICC divulged that umpires via match referees had expressed doubts Muralitharan's legitimacy for more than two years. But the Sri Lanka Cricket Board never seriously got moving until the bowler was shamed in front of 55,239 Boxing Day spectators.

Where the ICC find themselves in a pickle is when it comes to taking action against an umpire. The Regulations of the ICC Code of Conduct 1998 refers only to players or team officials as liable for disciplinary action if they break the Code. It does not refer to umpires.

What the ICC is confronted with today is that they have an umpire who has violated Section 8 of The Code, but cannot bring him to task because of a flaw on their part.

The ICC, in some ways cannot be blamed for not framing rules to take an umpire to task because the Code of Conduct was introduced to help them (the umpires) stamp out deterioration in standards of discipline in the international game etc. The ICC Code of Conduct has been in existence for seven years.

Considering the present predicament the ICC will need to buy time to make the necessary amendments to its Code, before they can take Hair to task.

The 40 umpires who have officiated against Muthiah Muralitharan after the Sri Lanka tour of Australia in 1995-96 (names appearing in bold type are those currently serving in the ICC National Grid panel):

New Zealand (5): Steve Dunne, Doug Cowie, C.E. King, D.M. Quested, E.A. Watkin.
Pakistan (5): Mahboob Shah, Javed Akhtar, Mohamed Nazir Jnr, Saleem Badar, Mian Mohammad Aslam.
South Afrcia (6): Cyril Mitchley, Dave Orchard, S.B. Lambson, D.F. Becker, Rudy Koertzen, W.A. Diedricks.
Zimbabwe (2): Ian Robinson, Russel Tiffin.
India (10): V.K. Ramaswamy, S.K. Bansal, Srini Venkatraghavan, K.S. Giridharan, K. Murali, S. Porel, D. Sharma, R.K. Sharma, K. Hariharan, A.V. Jayaprakash.
England (7): David Shepherd, George Sharp, Barry Duddleston, Peter Willey, Mervyn Kitchen, Ken Palmer, David Constant.
West Indies (4): Steve Bucknor, C.E. Cumberbatch, Edward Nicholls, Lloyd Barker.
Australia (1): Steve Randall.

Note: The following umpires; Mahboob Shah, Cyril Mitchley S.B. Lambson, Ken Palmer, Lloyd Barker and Steve Randall also served in the ICC panel for some time.

India, Pakistan, Singapore, West Indies, Kenya, Sharjah, New Zealand, South Africa, England, Bangladesh.

Source :: Daily News (https://www.lanka.net)