Ajmal Action Reported

[G.I.Joe]

How are they going to test him? After all these years, wouldn't the skin on his forearms be at risk of spontaneous combustion on the slightest exposure to any form of light?

[BoyBrumby]

Brumby to respond

See sig.

It's a new dawn, people. A real rain is coming to wash the, etc, etc...

[Agent Nationaux]

He's been tested before and passed. How is this any different or have they got better technology?

[marc71178]

Or maybe his action has regressed?

[sledger]

I, for one, welcome our new action-testing overlords.

[grecian]

He's been tested before and passed. How is this any different or have they got better technology?

I'll admit I can't talk about this stuff objectively. Yet maybe the quote in Brumbers sig may play a part. He just mentioned it above you.

Also didn't he unveil a new delivery recently, a teesra or some such bollocky nonsense.l

[BoyBrumby]

He's been tested before and passed. How is this any different or have they got better technology?

This is just my supposition, but I do think the technology has something to do with it.

Not that used in the lab, but that which records the revs a spinner imparts in games. It was mentioned when Senanayake was banned that the testers weren't convinced that some of the balls he sent down were akin to those bowled (supposedly, etc, etc...) in match conditions.

Now revs per min are routinely recorded testers maybe have more of a base line to work from; so if a bowler tries to duke the tests it's more obvious.

[Cevno]

I think to a naked eye Slower bowlers with unconventional actions look more suspect always, but would like Some Fast bowlers reported as well.

ICC needs to find a round that inherent bias in the system almost. Random testing maybe ?

[Maximas]

Or maybe his action has regressed?

It's certainly a possibility, and that's why it's a good idea to check his action again, mind you he passed quite emphatically last time, only straightened 8 degrees or something, will be interested to see what happens this time

[Cevno]

Think the ICC used to do all it's testing in Perth, Western Australia before.

Now they are using more labs around the world which they want to bring under their control more etc..

[Blain]

Ajmal and Pakistan seem to be so precious..

I've seen straighter arms from boundary fielders than Ajmal does bowling an offie.

It'd be interesting getting an insight on how the testing works, it is possible to bowl a different style at the testing nets. Assume it's all backed up with cameras and stuff.

[jonbrooks]

Saeed Ajmal reported for suspected illegal bowling action - ICC Cricket



Crikey.

Oh my, Muralitharan must be laughing his arse off!

[jonbrooks]

Link?

I think Ajmal and the reporters both mis-understood the law there. You are allowed to straighten by 15 degrees. If Ajmal starts with an 8.5 degree bend and is allowed to straighten by 15 degrees, that means he can bend his arm till 23.5 degrees before straightening it back out to 8.5 degrees.

For people with a 0 degree resting bend on their arm, they can bend it to 15 degrees and straighten it back to 0 during the release. For people with a 1 degree resting bend on their arm, they can go from 16 to 1. The bowler doesn't even need any resting bend in their arm. Even if their arm is perfectly straight, they can choose to bowl bent arm, which is legal as long as they don't straighten by more than 15 degrees. So they can start at 55 degrees and straighten it to 40 degrees and that would be fine (tho one would imagine terribly hard to bowl with).

The law controls how much you can straighten your arm, not to what extent you can bend it.

I think Ajmal's fine if that's the case.

However if he has been allowed to straighten by 23.5 degrees...then I am not quite sure how that works. Maybe they feel the 23.5 degrees to 8.5 degrees straightening is controllable, but he can't control the flex from 8.5 degrees to 0 degrees.

As for testing Herath and Perera - I think the testing methods have been tested with several 'normal' bowlers and found to be accurate and reliable, and that the results must have shown that if you don't notice a flaw in the action then there most probably isn't one. That is how they came about with the seemingly arbitrary number of 15 degrees to begin with. They said that's the amount of straightening visible to the naked eye - I.E. it would have to be atleast 15 till you could spot a chuck. And it is probably the case that with a bent-arm action (Like Ajmal) that the amount of straightening till it looks like a chuck is lower, hence the optical illusion that has stigmatised guys like Murali and Akhtar.

However given how Shillingford, Senanayke and Williamson have all been banned recently after being called up, and Samuels a short while before them, I don't feel very optimistic for Ajmal here.

I do hope he passes though.

There is no optical illusion. If it looks like a chuck, it is a CHUCK!

[viriya]

Hopefully Ajmal plays the next test - Sanga needs to get another double

[wellAlbidarned]

I've always thought he chucks it anyway. If he's cleared, then fine, but no harm in checking because it does look fishy.

The problem with Ajmal is that I dont think he chucks virtually everything like Senanayake, but he seems to bowl that effort ball/extra ripping doosra that looks so horrendous it just crosses that line of "could be an illusion" to "thats a blatant chuck". When he's tested in the lab I don't think he'll bowl that effort ball. And yeah, I know they compare it with match footage but I don't know whether they'll specifically compare it with that effort ball.

Being scientists and stuff I somewhat suspect they know how to conduct a trial to include all possibilities. They're not gonna pick one random delivery and be like "yep, here's our one". They'll definitely take into account the extremes.