This column has recently described how illegal bowling action (chucking) is rife and rampant in youth cricket and that the causes lie rooted in the coaching, umpiring, playing, and structure of Sri Lankan cricket.
“This chucking problem will not go away- coaches only play lip service in solving the chucking problem and will do nothing to stop their illegal match winners. Umpires at school, district and national levels are discouraged from and are afraid to call chuckers – claiming that their reports to the authorities only result in the buck being passed to the team coach”.
CHUCKING by the Richmond College and SLC Under-19 off spinner, Tyronne was recently confirmed by ICC testing at Perth for illegal action. This was despite many observers and oppositions seeing that he was a chucker and even calling him derisively “a mango thrower”. Youth cricket in schools, districts and national level is filled with this curse of chucking.
In senior cricket it is no different. Sachithra Senanayake’s testing last month for suspected chucking in the Lord’s ODI has confirmed that he bowled illegally. He failed the test in the ICC accredited Cardiff University biomechanical lab by massive margins.
He was required to bowl the four types of delivery that were reported: his normal delivery, arm ball, doosra and topspinner. He failed the test in every delivery he bowled, some with a massive straightening (extension) of his elbow from over 44 degrees of flex (29 degrees more than the ICC permitted 15 degrees). When he (and his SLC spin bowling coach, Pryal Wijetunge) was asked to bowl as he did in the Lord’s match, he continued to bowl with a straighter arm than in the match in question.
The testing was thus terminated as Senanayake was not bowling as he did in the match situation. This was clearly an attempt by him to keep his elbow flex below the ICC limit. This was an attempt to deceive the ICC testing process and proves for the first time, the repeated claims of critics including this columnist that ICC lab tests results are farcical as they are not real match conditions and can be easily conned by crafty bowlers and conniving coaches.
The testing concluded that every delivery he bowled, even his normal off spinner, was illegal and that the actual match deliveries were even worse than the Lab results. This means that during the Lord’s match Senanayake was bowling with a massive elbow flex of around 50 degrees when the ICC limit is 15! (This ICC rule is arbitrary and was increased from 5 degrees for spinners in 2001 for no scientific reason or reasoning.)
The SLC spin bowling coach is culpable. He worked with Senanayake, not to eliminate the chucking action, but only to get the bent arm action within the ICC limit. Is this not just a method of deceiving the ICC test? This spin coach and the SLC hierarchy have failed to understand that the revamped ICC strategy on testing for illegal bowling has been tightened up with the testing parameters rigorously enforced to stop bowlers and their coaches from “playing the system” as they did at Perth previously.
SLC cricket officials are silent and no explanations are forthcoming from the CEO, the Chairman of Cricket committee or head of coaching.They were not silent when the issue arose in England and absurd aspersions were cast by the Lankan captain Mathews and even some observers who ought to be more responsible, that the opposition team, English officials and “certain countries” were victimizing the Lankans.
They forgot that the West Indian bowler- Shillingford was reported at Galle and he and Samuels were reported in the West Indies. The W.I. captain or media did not complain about South Asian bias against Caribbean teams; the Caribbean cricketing people are far too mature and fair to stoop that low.
It is the SLC secretary, instead of sticking to his secretarial duties, who provided the bluff and bluster saying the Senanayake will undergo remedial work with the SLC coaching section and the spin bowling coach before a re-test.
The same people who are responsible for this chucking mess are now entrusted with cleaning it up: the Cricket committee chairman has ignored the chucking crisis for years. The head of coaching and the spin coach despite their boasts, have failed to check and correct the illegal action of various U-19 and U -23bowlers and of Senanayake previously in 2012 and now. It is like asking Al Capone and the Chicago mobsters to investigate the St Valentine’s day massacre! The spin coach or the head of coaching (or both) should be dismissed.
Can the coaching section correct bowling actions when they complain they cannot assess bent elbows? They cannot even see an enormous 50 degrees elbow flex with all the TV, video images and replays and with their supposedly high tech software. This writer had estimated Senanayake maximum elbow flex from published images, to be 45 to 50 degrees with the use of a twenty rupees protractor from a school geometry set.
The SLC spin coach should buy a protractor with his large overseas travel allowances.
Trying to correct Senanayake’s action and restore him to the team will never work because the bowling loses its vim and venom. The bowler then relapses to chucking again and the cycle turns fully bringing further testing and shame for the bowler and the country.
The English Captain, Cook said that you don’t have to bowl a doosra by throwing (or even a normal offbreak). So why not select straight arm, finger spinning doosra bowlers such as Ajantha Mendis, Randiv or Dilruwan who are not being picked consistently, instead of the bent arm wrist doosra bowlers. That is the challenge facing SLC and other cricket nations some of whom have already faced up to it. It is futile pleading victimization or conspiracy!
