Woolmer happy with Shabbir's progress

Bob Woolmer, Pakistan's coach, believes that Shabbir Ahmed's suspect bowling action has improved sufficiently since he was reported to the International Cricket Council (ICC) during Pakistan's tour of West Indies in May. Woolmer has been working with Shabbir over the last two weeks after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) decided to seek assistance at home rather than abroad to rectify his action.

According to the Karachi-based daily, The News, Woolmer told Saleem Altaf, the PCB Director, that he was now satisfied that the bowler's action was within ICC regulations. But the PCB will wait before sending videos of his remodeled action to the ICC Bowling Review Group for final clearance.

Board officials are eager for his action to be checked one last time by Dr Paul Hurrion, the ICC-appointed bio-mechanics expert, before they send the videos to the ICC. This is due to new ICC regulations introduced in March this year, which state that a bowler who is reported twice within two years will face a one-year suspension from all forms of cricket.

Understandably, the PCB are keen to avoid such a scenario and are prepared to wait until they are certain his action is rectified before they go to the ICC. A final decision on when to send him to Dr Hurrion will be taken by the ad-hoc committee which meets on September 12.

Shabbir was reported for the third time in his career during the Barbados test against the West Indies in May this year. The two previous occasions were after his first ODI in 1999 and on the tour to New Zealand in January 2004.