Cricket: Chucking kicked to kerb

NZ's Kane Williamson is allowed to bowl again. Photo / Getty Images

The ICC finally get tough with chuckers, with several high-profile players banned from bowling until they sort out their action

The International Cricket Council don't always receive plaudits but they deserve one for their efforts last year to clamp down on chucking.

In 2014, the sport's governing body dropped their blissful ignorance to chucking and lambasted the ugly bowling practice to the boundary.

Out came the electrodes for anyone with a kink in their arm at the point of delivery. Vigilance reigned as bowlers, including New Zealand's Kane Williamson, were ushered to revamped accreditation centres in Brisbane, Cardiff and Chennai for further assessment and remodelling.

They strode through their actions with wires attached to get clearance from independent panels of qualified scientists armed with state-of-the-art cameras and indoor nets.

Cricket purists might argue it is 800 test, 534 ODI and 13 T20I wickets too late, in relation to Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan who was passed legal for the permitted 15-degree of elbow flex and remains the greatest test and ODI wicket-taker. He inspired a new generation of bowlers who benefited significantly from the doosra, the 1990s invention of Pakistani off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq.

The doosra is delivered with the same finger action as a normal off-break but cocks the wrist so the back of the hand faces the batsman.

The ball spins in the opposite direction to an off-break but is difficult to bowl without putting the elbow in front of the wrist for extra leverage and bending the arm at the point of delivery. Its legality had irked some for a generation.

The doosra is possible to bowl within the legal limits but, as prolific international wicket-taker Saeed Ajmal is discovering, comes with excruciating difficulty.

Recent footage of his rehabilitation appeared on youtube.com and he gave the impression of putting a leaky handful of revolutions on the ball before it reached the batting crease.

It was basically the equivalent of what your Uncle Keith might rustle up in the backyard after too much Christmas dinner.

Out of the international game, Ajmal and his contemporaries shuffled as eagle-eyed officials were given licence to dob them in. Sure, there was a hint of Big Brother, but it was for the greater good.

Across 2014, Ajmal's team-mate Mohammad Hafeez, the West Indies' Shane Shillingford, Marlon Samuels and Sunil Narine, Sri Lanka's Sachithra Senanayake, Zimbabwe's Prosper Utseya, Bangladesh's Sohag Gazi, India's Pragyan Ojha and Williamson had the benefit of the doubt removed surrounding their actions.

Intriguingly, four - Narine, Ajmal, Senanayake and Hafeez - remain ranked among the top-10 ODI bowlers ahead of the World Cup.

Only Senanayake and Williamson have returned to bowl unconditionally, although they effectively remain on probation for two years after the date of their first suspension.

They will be suspended from bowling in internationals for a minimum of 12 months if charged with a repeat offence.

The ICC preserved the integrity of the game with this latest unambiguous policy which has created a logical process to protect the game from further geometric transgressions.