Sunil Narine, mystery bowler or what?

There was a time when cricket was really king and almost everything in life was related to cricket. In those days, when the wrong thing was said, or done, by anyone in any situation, the popular saying, by anyone and everyone, was, 'that's not cricket'.

Times have changed, however. Today, that is no longer so. The phrase has almost disappeared, almost like the hometown umpire, once the sole judge in cricket.

There was a time, in the 1950s and the 1960s, when throwers were few and far between, or so it was believed, times when Tony Lock of England was one of them, when Ian Meckiff of Australia and Geoff Griffin of South Africa were two who were 'called' and never heard of again, and when there were whispers about Sonny Ramadhin of the West Indies.

There was also the case of bowlers such as Charlie Griffith of the West Indies, Shoaib Akhtar and Saqlain Mushtag of Pakistan.

Those were the days when umpires were from home teams, and when umpires were allowed to 'call' bowlers with a suspect action.

Today, for whatever reason, the ICC is lenient, or weak, or both, on the matter of throwing, and the result is that it has come up with a 15-degree margin in which the bowler can operate, it has barred the umpire from 'calling' the bowler, and the two umpires and the match referee must agree before reporting the bowler to his team's officials for a suspect action.

The result is that with pitches now covered and batting made easier, bowlers given a leeway of 15 degrees in the straightening of the arm, umpires barred from 'calling' the suspected bowlers as before, with bowlers being allowed to play until their action is checked at universities identified for the job, and batsmen improving defensively, there seems to be a number of bowlers, particularly off-break bowlers, with suspect actions.

Off-break bowlers have found ways of defeating the batsmen, and these ways include the 'doosra' and the 'carrom' ball, the ball which spins from leg to off.

The thing about this delivery is that I have never met a cricketer, or rather a Test cricketer, who believes it is possible for anyone to bowl a 'doosra' without throwing the ball.

Bowlers like Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan and Sachithra Senanayake, India's Harbhajan Singh, South Africa's Johan Botha, Pakistan's Mohammed Hafeez and Saeed Ajmal, Jerome Lawson, Shane Shillingford, and Marlon Samuels of the West Indies, Sohaq Gazi of Bangladesh, and Prosper Utseya of Zimbabwe have been among the host of suspect bowlers who have been reported and have gone through or are going through the process.

Some were cleared and some were not, and some are now going through the process and wondering what is in store for them. Based on precedence, that can be anything.

NOT SURPRISING

Sunil Narine of the West Indies is the latest of those under the microscope, and it is not surprising, or rather, it should not to be surprising.

Apart from what I see as an obvious flaw in his action, apart from what some West Indians see as an illegal action, as a bent elbow rather than a flick of the wrist, like Taylor and Shillingford before him, Narine was sent for remedial treatment on his first appearance in first-class cricket.

That suggests that it is not a plot by others to hurt Narine and harm West Indies cricket.

What, however, is surprising, is that like it was with Hafeez and Ajmal, and with Muralitharan before them, it took the umpires and match referees so long to question Narine again.

Maybe the number of bowlers with a suspect action has reached the point where the ICC has finally said enough is enough and have cleared the way for the umpires and company to do something about it.

The ICC probably does not wish the game to become a happy hunting ground for throwers or chuckers and has decided to abandon the 15-degree rule.

SOMETHING FISHY

Whatever is the reason, something fishy is going on. Narine, again like Ajmal and company, has been allowed to take many wickets and to build a reputation as a mystery bowler at home and abroad, all this time, in some people's opinion, while he was bowling with a suspect action.

Whoever he is and wherever he comes from, it must be wrong for someone to break the rules and to profit by doing so, and maybe the better approach in dealing with the problem would be to allow the umpires to do their job and to 'call' the offending bowler on the spot.

With the umpires being 'neutral' these days, and the match referees also, with Muralitharan now coaching Australia's off-spinners, this way may be much better, certainly better than it was in 1995, when Australian umpire Daryl Hair 'called' Muralitharan for throwing, an incident which led to a row between Australia and Sri Lanka and Hair's career coming to end.

The ICC is the ICC, it will, probably, never be tough enough, or uncompromising enough, like FIFA and the IOC.

The hope, however, is that cricket will not put up with throwers, whoever they are and wherever they come from, that cricket will find a solution to the problem, and that, as it was in days gone by, one day cricket fans will once again say, at least until throwing is legitimate, whenever they see bowlers bending their elbows, "that's not cricket".

Oh, for off-spinners like Jim Laker and Lance Gibbs, Erapali Prasanna and Graeme Swann. They were as clean as a whistle, with most of them being great also.