HyperExtension and Chucking
 

Watching a video of Michael Holding trying to explain Hyperextension in Shoaib Akhtar's bowling (after Greg Chappell raised it in Pak). Holding says that there are other bowlers who have same hyperextension as well but they dont bend their arms as much as Shoaib does and he picks Indian bowler RP Singh who also has hyperextension as well.

In the clips he shows the hyperextension in RP Singh's arm and compares it to Shoaib's and then shows their side-on bowling actions and then the front-on action. From the side on the hyperextension is clearly visible in both the bowlers, but when you see it front on, RP Singh's action looks perfect, but in Shoaib's action there is a very visible bend. The clip ends there and Holding stops short of giving his verdict.

I am not the expert here either on bowling or on Biomechanics, I was just wondering how can one guy bowl with straight arm(atleast when you look at it from front) and the other can not ?

PS :- I wish I could post the video here but the forum rules dont really allow us to do si, but I can say this that it was shown during India's recent tour of Pakistan, after the end of the 4th day play.

can u upload the clip to some site? i'd love see it.

Okay goto Youtube.com and search for 'Shoaib' - It will come up as 'Michael Holding on Shoaib Akhtar's Hyperextension' or 'Shoaib Akhtar & RP Singh Arm Issue'.

PS :- I hope I am not violating any forum rule, If I am then Mods/admins, please feel free to delete this post.

there might be different degrees of hyperextension, some might have less and others might have more!

Yeah, I'm sure there would be. It's an interesting video there, Sanz. I must admit to having no real idea as to what hyperextension was, so I found it quite helpful in understanding it all.

I myself had no idea, after I saw that I realized that my brother has that type of hyperextension ( Good news is the doesn't play cricket ;) ).

Also when we look from side-on, IMO RP Singh's Hyperextension is more visible than Shoaib's but the fin the front-on action, Shoaib's elbow bend is really ugly.

Its high time ICC should ban all chuckers, Jagmohan is also not in office so noone will stand for those illegeal bowlers!

Please, If you cant post anything positive in this thread, Stay away. I dont want this to be another one of your Pakistan bashing threads. Can someone please check the IP of this hatemonger and Keep him out of this forum for good.

I wish I had the powers to delete posts in threads created by me.

Murali chucks ban him..:laugh:

On a more serious note, interesting video!

Please maintain your sanity over here, and stop trying to act like a detective and spying for IP's:@

I have expressed my opinion in a very mild manner, i can quote ppl like Bedi,Veingsarkar and Peter Roebuck that had very harsh things to say about chuckers.Everyone has the right to express his opinion.

As far as I'm concerned, hyperextension and chucking are two completely different things...given that (from what I understand) hyperextension is an involuntary bending of the elbow past where it would be considered straight when placed under stress (like a bowling action), whereas an illegal action, or 'chucking', has always been the inward bending of the elbow and subsequent straightening during delivery as far as I see it. This is an action that can be remedied and, in most cases, is the result of poor technique and a voluntary movement.

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think hyperextension was supposed to be taken into account when the whole 'every bowler throws' thing surfaced - I'm very dubious re: that accusation.

(bit of changing re: the grammar in that last line - it sucked!)

agreed

And I think Shabir Ahmad does that quite often.

This, for me, sums it up best.
You cannot stop hyper-extension. I'm not completely sure, but if I get it correctly a double-jointed joint can only be extended fully (beyond 180degrees) with external force. The joint mechanism can take it only to 180degrees as in a normal joint. As such, the arm does change sinuosity during bowling, but it goes from, say, 178degrees to 192degrees (the latter angle which is beyond a normal elbow). The arm of a chucker would, for instance, go from 152degrees to 176degrees (hypothetical figures).
I see nothing wrong with a bowler who has a double-jointed elbow bowling in cricket, and nor do most people. Some, of course, don't accept optical-illusions, and people like Shoaib and Kirtley (had never seen Rutra Pratap Singh before yesterday, and confess I noticed nothing yet) do look bad, but it's merely illusion.
No, it didn't come into that: the point of that was that the ideals - that most bowlers had bowling-actions where the elbow flexation was 0 degrees - were false, and most bowling-actions involved 10 degrees flexation or something around about (there was, obviously, quite a bit of variation - which is not really surprising given how many different bowlers there are).
Then the ludicrousy of stating that 14 degrees was somehow massively different from 16 degrees, while there was no difference between 12 and 14, came in. 8-)

Yeah, I think that's the case too as far as hyperextension goes - you need stress placed on the joint for it to extend past its normal threshhold. From what I understand of it, it's possible for every bowler's elbow to extend past this threshhold under the stress of bowling, not just double-jointed elbows (I'm not sure if that's what you were saying or not!?). As far as I'm concerned, rules that call someone whose arm hyperextends from any degree past its normal threshold a 'chucker' are farcical, as it's an involuntary movement...a player whose arm bends and straightens on the other hand should have nearly no margin of error as it's a voluntary or learnt movement and is able to be corrected. The only way you can stop a bowler's arm from hyperextending is to strap a steel rod to it. A bowler who starts and stays bent (his arm that is) is, as we all know, ok.

If the ICC were looking at elbow 'flexation' though, were they looking for any flex or an action that would actually indicate some sort of throw? Every bowler does not throw if you look at the definition of a throw as I believe it to be...every bowler undoubtedly has a level of flex associated with hyperextension though. I'm far from an expert on this (I'd reside at the other end of the spectrum actually!) so these are questions, definately not statements.

I understand what you're saying in reference to the difference in degrees, and I assume it was decided that some sort of limit needed to be established...has anything the ICC has attempted to do with throwing seemed sensible though?:)