Cricket: Doosra question a vexing one for New Zealand umpires

New Zealand Cricket CEO Martin Snedden says he will be interested to see how umpires here handle Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan after controversy surrounding the recommendation to relax cricket's vexed chucking laws.

Muralitharan, known as Murali, is almost certain to miss next month's one-dayers and will join his team-mates only for the test matches against New Zealand in January. At that stage, the meeting of the International Cricket Conference CEOs will not have met to decide whether the changes will be adopted.

By the time Murali sends down his first delivery against New Zealand, the rules will not have changed and he will not be permitted to bowl his doosra - the off-spinner which leaves a right-handed batsman - which he has been suspended from bowling pending the ICC inquiry into chucking.

Snedden said: "My understanding is that he will not be allowed to bowl the doosra. I will be most interested to see how the umpires handle things when he is here but I am sure that they will handle things from a little bit more relaxed and commonsense perspective."

Snedden said his own opinion of the ICC research was coloured by the fact that he knew just how extensive and exhaustive the research was.

"It's been a pretty thorough exercise. My only question is whether the 15-degree limit is the right one. We (the ICC CEOs) will have to have a look at that and the rationale behind it."

However, Snedden did not agree that the changes had been prompted solely by the debate over Murali's action.

"This research started a long time ago and was well advanced even before he began bowling the doosra," he said. "It's been a three-year study."

Snedden also defended the recent tour of Bangladesh from comments that it provided less-than-ideal competition and conditions ahead of the tour of Australia.