The walking minefield, and cricket's Iraq
There is no issue that divides the cricketing world as much as the issue of chucking
The bold headlines everywhere (such as our own "ICC study reveals that 99% of bowlers throw") simplified matters too much. The ICC never said that all these bowlers throw. It is merely saying that what constitutes a chuck, or an illegal delivery, needs to be redefined. This is because the process of bowling involves an involuntary straightening of the arm in most bowlers, which is something that the eye cannot detect, and that the bowler cannot help. The degree to which that straightening occurs, according to the ICC's expert panel, is 15 degrees. Anything up to that level, thus, should not be considered an illegal ball, and the law should be modified to take that into account.
If straightening the arm upto 15 degrees is involuntary, where does the question arise of the ICC allowing anyone to throw the ball. The logic behind the rule-change is to separate involuntary straightening, that most bowlers do, from voluntary and unfair straightening of the arm. By removing the flaws, and the ambiguity, within the law, the ICC is ensuring that the rulebook is fairer, and easier to enforce. The law does not make it possible to chuck; on the contrary, it makes it easier to detect chuckers.
The ICC can monitor illegal bowling much better now that there is clarity on what an illegal delivery actually is. While their intent is correct, though, their method of doing so is cumbersome and long-winded - although no worse than before. Once an illegal delivery has been defined, the ICC needs to be able to monitor it in real-time, on a ball-by-ball basis. This need not involve slowing up the game with replays. Instead, technology can be devised that can determine the degree of straightening as soon as the bowler has finished bowling.
The prism of nationality
Some of us love cricket for the intrinsic beauty of the game, while some of us enjoy it only if our side wins More.
Stock markets are ruled by sentiment, where perception often affects reality. Of what relevance is this to cricket? More.
Robert Trivers once said about the legendary evolutionary biologist William Hamilton, 'While the rest of us speak and think in single notes, he thought in chords.' And how do we watch cricket? More.
To whom does cricket belong? Who exactly should the BCCI be accountable to? What is the road ahead for Indian cricket? More.
Some final thoughts on technology and cricket. More.
Technology will not replace the umpire, but empower him. And it will do justice to the skills of players by vastly reducing human error from the game. More.
Can behaving positively change the way you feel? Can the way you feel change the way you play? Does a successful team make for a happy one, or if it the other way around? More.
How Indian cricket fans are like the left parties in India, and why hardworking players rather than talented ones make the best captains, coaches and commentators More.
We should judge journalists only on the basis of they write, and not their biodata More.
Indian cricketers, and other Indian sportsmen, are constantly vilified and denigrated by their "fans". Why is this so? More.
Was Matthew Hayden's salvo at subcontinental batsmen just an attempt at mental disintegration, or was there some truth to it? Was Murali's brace like Perl, the programming language? What if the fat man is too fat for you? More.
Is there a moral dimension to cricket distinct from the laws of the game? If so, what is it? More.
Muttiah Muralitharan has proved, with his new documentary, that his action is clean. But what does the controversy reveal about us? Was our judgment based on the available evidence, or on the biases we held? More.
Twenty20 cricket is good for the sport, and for the commerce of it. What about performance-enhancing drugs? More.
A constant conflict in cricket is that between the long-term interests of a team, and their short-term needs. Generally, the short term wins out. More.
Should we fiddle with biology? Will genetic engineering make us lose our humanity, or will it improve our lives immeasurably? And what are its repurcussions for sport? More.
There is a strong argument that standards of excellence have risen in just about every single department of every single sport. Are the dominant sportsmen of today, then, the greatest ever? Also, gene doping. More.
A blog of the India-Pakistan match on July 25, 2004. Some great cricket, and fairly unbelievable commentary. More.
Twenty20 cricket draws in spectators and has revitalised cricket. It might also be the key to globalising the game. More.
Has the balance of the game shifted, with the bat dominating ball, as we enter "a batting bull market"? Or is that just alarmism, with bowlers impacting the game as never before, and ensuring that 77% of all Tests end in results? More.