CONSISTENTLY INCONSISTENT

Last year Keith Stackpole wrote that Murali is a chucker: "If I had been on the international Cricket Council's sub-committee that assessed Muthiah Muralidaran's action years ago, he would not be playing today." Then wrote: he "should be recognised for his considerable achievements." In other words, he cheats, but so what.

Sunday, for some reason, he felt the need to reiterate; welcoming Murali to Straya and hoping we do likewise.

Murali heads our way

DESPITE the criticism Muthiah Muralidaran has endured over the years, particularly in Australia, it's great the star spinner has said he will tour this summer.
But Cricket Australia will be on the edge until he gets off the plane because he has pulled out of Australian tours before.
In fact, despite a long and remarkable career Murali has only played two Tests for Sri Lanka on Australian shores -- in 1995.
He took 3-348 in that series and Australia hasn't seen the best of this gifted spinner, except on TV.
The ice was broken two years ago when he came to play a Test for the World XI and played some one-dayers. He is closing in quickly on Shane Warne's world record of 708 wickets and it is likely he could break the record in the second Test at Bellerive in Tasmania.
He is having a ball at the moment against Bangladesh having taken 14 wickets at 14.29 in the first two Tests and has the third to play in Kandy and only trails Warne by 20.
Whenever you talk about a record that will never be broken you are always tempting fate.
But there are three records I think will never be broken.
The first is Jim Laker's, who took 19 wickets in a Test match for England against Australia in 1956 at Old Trafford.
Bradman's overall Test average of 99.94; and whatever number of wickets Muralidaran ends up with, I doubt it will ever be broken.
He is 35 and could play another five years. People laughed at Warne suggesting Muralidaran could break the 1000-barrier, but there is no reason, with the amount of Test cricket played today, he could not achieve that remarkable target.
When you analyse the two spinners, the Aussie spinner probably had better bowlers in front of him such as Glenn McGrath, Merv Hughes and Jason Gillespie, but they also ate into his wicket-taking potential.
But with Sri Lanka light on for bowlers, only paceman Chaminda Vaas has taken the limelight away from Murali.
Murali has taken 58 five-wicket hauls compared with Warne's 35 and on 19 occasions has taken 10 or more in a match compared with Warne's 10.
Also Murali's strike and economy rate eclipses the great Aussie leg spinner.
But having said that, there is no doubt Warne has plied his trade against far stronger opposition.
However, we must acknowledge Murali has been a first-class spinner who has proven time and time again he belongs on the world stage.
He is a gutsy bowler. But I hope I don't see another bowler with a similar action otherwise the game will talked about for all the wrong reasons.
If he does break the record in Australia I hope our fans show their appreciation and acknowledge his fine contribution to the game.

Personally, I hope our fans show contempt, not appreciation. How much contempt? Well, I'd expect Aussie punters to rate high on the chuckanista contempo-meter, with assorted pundits harumpfing about our awful behaviour. And I DEMAND nothing less than complete contempt from Spanky - "Australia crowds are a disgrace." Result.

Interesting, too, that Stacky mentions the Tsunami match. Chris Cairns (I think) was pounding the bowlers when Murali unleashed a doosra to get Cairns stumped. Not so strange, you say, except the doosra was banned at the time. Doubtless, Murali, in a cynical attempt to stop the pounding threw in the doosra to surprise the big Kiwi blouser.

There were rock all complaints, just minor static that it was a one-off in a charity match, so what did it matter.

Disturbingly, the same thing happened in the recent Twenty/20 at The Oval. Mark at the excellent RSM writes that Marlon Samuels was getting tonked, so, just like Murali's doosra ploy, Samuels fired in "one of the most dubious deliveries seen in an international match" to skittle Paul Collingwood. (You just know it's "blatant cheating" when Mark cites the Telegraph.)

Official cant has always been that if someone was stupid enough to try a super-dodgy delivery in any match, the umpire is still free to call it.

Did Marlon get called? Did he fuck.

Worse, "the Sky commentators TOTALLY ignored" it. But there's no surprise in that, is there. Too many of those that matter (couldn't think of a better term) keep shtum on chucking. Until they are prepared to acknowledge the enormous, leather-skinned herbivore in the room, the one with the flappy ears and the trunk, then most everything else they say should be taken with a salty grain. They are hopelessly compromised.

Unless commentators are prepared to call it as they see it, it can only be a matter of time until someone unleashes a chuck at a crucial point in a Test match.

Comments

[nick]

Perhaps when Murali comes in to bat, the Australian bowlers could take turns in bowling doosras at him? Of course, they could be delivered at half normal pace, with a slow arm action, so that the mechanism of the delivery could be shown to those too blind to otherwise see.

[nick]

Samuels must have seen this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtugxllDHwM

[Bruce]

We've carved him up before and we'll carve him up again.

And I will call him a chucker until the day I die. In 20 or more years time when all people will really consider are his stats it will take vigilance from people like us to remind the cricket-loving yoof of the future that he was a cheating bastard.

Be strong comrades and tell all those who come after.

[Tony T.]

Looking at those record books in a few years will make for some interesting reading.

Mind you, I will be dizzy from all that flicking to the footnotes and appendices.

[Scott Wickstein]

Who puts the hard word on our media to keep schtum, I wonder?

[Adsy]

If Murali is a chucker, then Warney is a womanizing, chain smoking, drug taking sledger of a cricketer.

But at least he doesn't cheat.

[Carrot]

I think you'll probably find that legally he has been cleared, by an independent arbitrator, and so if the commentators called him a cheat that Channel 9 and the commentators would probably be hugely liable. If someone was cleared of, say, fraud, and a tv journalist described them on-air as being dishonest, much worse mounted a concerted campaign to have them convicted and run out of town, you can imagine the furore! Defamation of character, slander, perjury, lawsuits etc etc etc.

That's above and beyond whether he actually chucks or not, which I must admit I'm still very much on the fence about.

[nick]

What if Murali effectively ended your career by dominating you over the course of a series, repeatedly getting your wicket with the doosra? Would you sue? Would you win?

[Tony.T]

I agree that the commentators probably can't come right out and say he chucks and cheats; legal action and all that.

What I find offensive is that they continually rave about him as a champion when many of them think he chucks. That they pointedly avoid any mention of the C-Word. That production teams often super-slo-mo other bowlers' actions, but not Murali. That they zero in on any and all contentious issues happening in a game, but virtually ignore chucking.

The sooner he retires the better. Pity he's already fawked the game and its records.

[Carrot]

Yep. That much I agree with. Part of the reason I'm on the fence is that beyond the regular or garden variety coverage, I've never actually seen a proper breakdown of how his action works, with the super slo-mo's and the sideways/frontways/upside down/inside out views that they regularly trot out with everyone else. They just don't show it, which you could argue is because they know that it's a flawed action - but you could also argue that it's because it's just too volatile an issue for too many reasons and they'd rather leave it alone.

Which is a shame to be honest, because if he is clean he deserves to be demonstrated as such to the wider public, instead of just that bloke at the UWA whom everyone seems to think is on the take from the entire Asian bloc, the ICC, Osama bin Laden and both Bush administrations.

But I can completely understand why they have to leave it completely alone - see above, and if his action was that cut and dried there wouldn't be a debate in the first place, would there?

[Professor Rosseforp]

My thoughts on Muralitharan have been documented before in this forum.
However, I have not heard too many Aussies complain about bending of the rules by the Wallabies in the rah-rah code. The two which get on my goat are: the "wraparound" with dummy runners, which is actually shepherding the ballplayer from tackles by interposing players between the ballplayer and the opposition. The first try against South Africa B last week was a classic case -- the South African appeals to the ref were ignored.
The other one is George Gregan's consistent refusal to put the ball in the scrum when ordered to by the referee. He would rather chat to inexperienced referees about his interpretation of the scrum than put the ball in. He should be penalised for talking and penalised for not feeding until he shuts up and puts the ball in.

[Adsy]

Only problem with the Wallabies is that they're crap now, and only select pockets of the country actually follow them. If they happen to make the semi's of the WC I might have to watch a game or two, but before that they can cheat all they like.

Difference with Murali is that he is actually going to be in the record books as the greatest bowler ever, and anything we say and have been saying for the past 10 years isn't going to change a thing: that's the sad part.

[Simon]

Dummy runners (which is absolutely rampant these days in the ARL) and Gregan not putting the ball into a scrum in a timely fashion as observed in a recent game against the yarpies v Murali throwing the ball at the batsmen ?

Apples as compared to whatever type of fruit is so diametrically opposed to an apple so as to be an anti - apple.

Perhaps if you threw an apple into a black hole.

[David Barry]

I think it would help the chucking debate enormously if all (or a good number at least) of the worlds top bowlers all underwent the same testing as Murali at UWA, and all the data on elbow straightenings was published. If it turns out that (as some suggest), most bowlers have ~10 degrees of straightening, then we either have a huge clearout of players or keep things as they are and lay off Murali. If, on the other hand, everyone's down near zero straightening and Murali is at 12 or 14 degrees, then Murali is a chucker.

My belief is that Murali's action looks bad because of an optical illusion, but until there's good data on lots of other bowlers, no-one can really win this debate.

[Tony T.]

Let me get this straight - rugby?

Dave, I take your point. Whenever anyone bleats "If Murali chucks, everyone does" I reply "Ok then, name names and show me the research."

But I'd still chuck 'im out.

[Professor Rosseforp]

How would Murali go throwing the ball from the sideline to a rugby lineout?
David Barry, it's my belief that when a bowler's front foot crosses the line during delivery it is an optical illusion -- also when a batsman's stumps are knocked out of the ground by a demon paceman ; the former should not be no-balled and the latter should not result in a batsman's dismissal.

[David Barry]

Prof Rosseforp: The problem with your analogy is that front foot no-balls are (usually) clear-cut, and a fixed side-on camera can easily check it. From this angle, it is certain that the boot either is partially behind the popping crease or not - there is no scope for an illusion. Any two people who look at the same replay will agree whether or not it was a front-foot no ball.

With throwing, a single camera angle is not always sufficient. You can't always determine elbow straightenings from a single angle - you need multiple camera angles so that you can work out where the different parts of the arm are in 3-D, and from there calculate the straightening.

People have watched footage of Murali bowling with a brace on his arm, so that his elbow *can't* straighten, and have said that it looks like he's chucking. Other people think that it looks fine. The human eye is clearly fallible when it comes to detecting chucking, so we need, in most of the contentious cases, to resort to technology.

One spectacular example of the human eye not being good enough is Paul Adams. Everyone talked about being a "frog in a blender", but no-one (as far as I can tell) saw that in fact he chucked it. The study here:

http://www.sportsci.com/SPORTSCI/JANUARY/biomechanics_of_cricket_bowling.htm

shows that he straightened his arm 22 degrees - much worse than Murali!

[nick]

Dudley is currently analysing many types of throwing and bowling actions as part of his Master's degree to offer scientific guidelines to the cricketing community concerning this problem. By the time that he has studied sufficient footage of Adams and other local and international spinners and quick bowlers, it is hoped that the cricketing world will be enriched by a better understanding of the different types of bowling action. Possibly this sort of analysis will even assist the cricketing fraternity in modifying and applying the laws of the game. The aphorism, "It’s not cricket", may then take on a entirely new meaning!

[ School of Mechanical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 19 March 1996 ]

1996 eh...

Good to see that Dudley's research improved the state of affairs vis. throwing and chucking.

[Mark]

Regretably the ICC feel that they have now offically 'cleared' Murali, and I can't see them wanting to return to that issue anytime soon.

However, what they COULD do is come down really hard on the next joker who 'does a Samuels' and blatantly chucks one down in an international game. That at least will send a message that they will let Murali carry on regardless but woe betide anyone else who tries going down the same route.

A bit lame, I admit, but I reckon it's the best we can hope for.

[Yobbo]

Everyone predicted the samuels thing the minute they took away the umpires' ability to call a chuck.

It's only a matter of time before it happens in a test or a world cup final, and the destruction of cricket by the ICC wil be complete.

[Yobbo]

Ps, that's some optical illusion, Uri Geller would be proud.

http://aftergrogblog.blogs.com/agb/images/Murali_Rejects.jpg

[David Barry]

Yobbo: Everyone knows his elbow is bent. The question is how much it straightens, compared to other bowlers. You can't even say how much it straightens from a still shot.

[Tony.T]

Dave, I didn't know Adams had been pegged as a chucker; probity of those decade-old tests notwithstanding. I dare say Murali never had a session with Dudley. I mean, surely the UWA bowling doctors are the ICC's go-to guys. Their safe option. Finding the not-as-suspect Paul Adams at 22 degrees tells me they wouldn't be keen to risk sticking Murali in front of Dudley's theodolite.

Still, before I dumped Adams for chucking, I'd dump him for being a dud.

"The question is how much it straightens" brings me back to the coverage. As I said above, I can see why Nine don't come right out and say Murali's a chucker; writs, summons, injunctions and all that. But his playing compromises the telecasts because they skirt around his action.

In the 2005 Super Series Test at the SCG it stuck out like a 45 degree elbow that they showed superb high-res, slo-mo, FULL-VIEW footage of Warne, Flintoff and MacGill, but they cropped Murali footage, keeping tight on his hand.

If, as is often stated, he's a genius, they should show us how he does it, just like they do with every other star batsman, bowler, catcher, thrower and dirt-in-pocketer.

[David Barry]

I agree about the coverage.

As to whether the testing from 1996 was of the same standard as at UWA, we can't know. So it comes back to needing everyone tested at the same lab.

[Carrot]

There WAS a test run on everyone at one point - the 2004 ICC Champions' Trophy - or whatever it was called then. It was found that every single bowler in the tournament straightened their arm to a certain degree, except for - wait for it - Ramneresh Sarwan. From what I can gather, it was one of the reasons why the straightening rules were relaxed, because loads of them - and apparently lots of above-all-scrutiny types as well - were actually going further than the old rules said that they should have. Which basically addresses the "until it's proven that everyone chucks" theory.

[Professor Rosseforp]

David, interesting comments. Have you read the previous parts of this blog which cite the original studies (from Hong Kong?) of Murali's action, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not straighten or bend his arm at all, ever?
Viewers had suspicions about Paul Adams, but could not clearly see what was going on -- testing is great in this case.
We have also raised the issue of every bowler bending the elbow, and queried whether this includes the "drag-bend" of a speed bowler, which is different to a spinner's bending.
The other query was that if all bowlers bend by 10%, why wasn't that limit accepted? And does Murali remain within the new limit, or do we still stick to the original view that he is the only bowler in world cricket who never bends his elbow during his bowling action?
I notice you picked the logical fault in the front-foot rule, but you could not refute my cleaned-bowled optical illlusion!!

[David Barry]

Carrot: Thanks for that! Do you know if anyone made all the details publicly available? I can find an old Cricinfo article which says that Pollock and McGrath straightened by "as much as" 12 degrees (and Sarwan not at all), but I can't find any more specifics.

Prof: Yeah, the Hong Kong study is one of those things that makes the whole thing look dodgy. (Another: Murali's doosra is found to involve a 14 degree straightening, and BAM! the new legal limit is 15 degrees. There's good science, in the 2004 study, behind a 15 degree limit, but it looked like it was changed for Murali.)

Daryl Foster said that Murali's arm rotation is at a speed comparable to fast bowlers, so his bend could be the same sort of "drag-bend" that you refer to. I think that's what you mean, anyway.

[Pedro the Ignorant]

Next summer I fully intend to one of the crowd that greets the googly eye chucker's alleged bowling with jeers, catcalls, epithets, sobriquets and possibly even some *gasp* . . derision!

I will regard it as a badge of honour if Spanky and/or the English Press report the crowd behaviour as "unsportsmanlike".

No doubt the "racist" tag will be dragged out again.

[Professor Rosseforp]

David Barry: I think drag bend is when a straight arm is moved through the air rapidly enough that it bends backwards -- you would expect this in Craig McDermott, Glenn McGrath, etc -- it's different to the flinging when someone like Brett Lee strives for extra pace. In Murali's case, I think his permanently-bent elbow would preclude this. You may have also read in earlier posts my references to "retroflex elbows" -- this is where someone straightens their arm and it actually bends backwards from the 180 degree position to a 190 or 200 degree angle. This is fairly common in kids, probably before their ligaments have got old and cranky like mine. When these people bowl with a legitimate action, including bowling wrist-spin, leg-spin, off-spin, top-spin, swerve, swing, fingerspin, or even knuckle-balls, or underarm, sidearm or left or right handed -- there is no illusion of throwing. Which maketh me somewhat doubting of optical illusions just because the arm is bent forward rather than backwards.
Does this make sense?

[David Barry]

OK, I see what you're saying, though I don't know enough about biomechanics to comment knowledgeably on retroflex elbows.

I think the illusion of "greater than usual straightening" with Murali comes from two factors:

1. When his arm is pointed directly away from you, the bentness in his arm is not so obvious as when it's sideways. As he rotates his bowling arm, you see the apparent elbow angle changing drastically.

2. His wrist moves through 270 degrees, which looks weird and unnatural.

With the retroflex elbows, the arm starts straight, so it doesn't look like the bowler can throw it.

[nick]

Bugger all this UWA bunk. He looks like he chucks and most other bowlers don't. It's politically unpalatable and practically impossible to ban him. So let us all unite in booing him roundly when he arrives, and cheer loudly when the Aussies tonk him to all corners of the ground, as they have done in recent encounters. His stats will stand but his reputation won't.

[Mark]

Surely anyone barracking Murali will only be doing exactly the same as the Barmy Army 'calling' Brett Lee in his delivery stride.

The only person who got upset about that was the diminutive Justin Langer...

Even Lee took it well - by the end of the MCG test he had become a Barmy Army folk hero!

[Yobbo]

This year the grounds will likely eject anyone who heckles Murali anyway. People got banned for much less during the ashes.

[DaveAct]

I see Chuckali's action just before and at delivery as being more akin to throwing darts than "bowling" as we know it.

[Clem Snide]

"...he could break the record in the second Test at Bellerive in Tasmania. He is having a ball at the moment against Bangladesh..."

Two half-sentences which painfully summarise everything that is wrong with the ICC.

[Professor Rosseforp]

David Barry, the retroflex elbow is bent backwards at the beginning, middle and end of the delivery, since that is the only way someone with a retroflex elbow can "straighten" their arm. It remains at the retroflex action throughout the delivery, even when a really wristy spinner bowls. No optical illusion. Check it out at your local park or practice nets.
I have seen Murali's arm in various stages of visibility, when the bend becomes apparent. When he bowls with a legitimate action, the ball remains in the same position, as the elbow angle appears to change, and the batsmen can judge that the ball is coming from a regular arc. However, when there is an apparent jerking motion, the ball ceases to be delivered from the expected arc -- exactly as happens in a throw. To my mind, this is where Murali gains an unfair advantage over batsmen and other bowlers. Again, I think the media have shown tracks of the arc of the ball whilst in a bowler's hand, as it is swung from its lowest point to release -- we need to see this kind of tracking on Murali's arm.

[Carrot]

David, I'm not sure whether they made the results public. I just remember reading about it. And I was going to cite McGrath and Bollock in my above post, but wasn't sure whether I remembered them being mentioned or not at the time - but they were certainly the "above scrutiny" types to which I referred.

I'm not sure whether it matters if you're a spinner or a quick. If the rules say that you're not supposed to bend your arm during delivery beyond a certain point, then dem's the rules. If you don't do it, you're not cheating. I though the debate on this blog was about conspiracy theories surrounding whether the results were clean or not, not whether he bends more than 15 degrees. I don't buy the fact that they changed the rules straight after the doosra was questioned either - the fact was, because they realised that EVERYONE chucked to a degree, that it was stupid to carry on with the same ruling otherwise everyone was outside the law.

Incidentally, I'm writing this at 1:30am in an internet cafe in Moscow - this is how much I care. Tony - ya gotta clog more mate, cricket's what get the punters rolling in!

[Mark]

Ok Carrot, everyone does 'chuck' to a certain extent because everyone has a slightly bent arm in delivery.. but, to paraphrase Orwell, some are more bent than others. Mcgrath and Co have a 'degree of difficulty' of around 15 degrees, Murali's is around 40.

[Professor Rosseforp]

Carrot, in case it's not obvious, some of us do not buy the "everyone chucks to a degree and always has in the history of the game" -- if this is so, let's see how much Ian Chappell chucked when he bowled legspin, or Greg Chappell when he bowled offspin or medium pace. Let's see Viv Richards' degree of bend. Let's see Jeff Thomson, Freddie Trueman, Rodney Hogg, Brian Statham, Malcolm Marshall. I'd be interested to see the flexion in a Freddie Titmus delivery, or Bishan Bedi, or Rumesh Ratnayake. How about Sunil Gavaskar when he opened the bowling for India? Geoff Dymock? Ted Dexter? Slasher McKay? Graham McKenzie?
I would like to see what percentage of flexion was involved, what kind of flexion, and what percentage of their deliveries showed some flexion and what percentage showed no flexion.
Then we could start to compare and contrast with some real data.
I would also like to see how many of Muralitharan's deliveries are within the current "legal" limit.
I would also like to see the doosra called by its correct name, so that the issue is not confused.
You can see my previous postings elsewhere in After Grog Blog for my positive assessments of Murali -- I don't even mind if the throwing rules of cricket are changed -- but if they are, let's go the whole way and just play vigoro.
P.S. how are the pitch conditions in Moscow?

[Tony T.]

Comments from me may well be superfluous at this point given how much I'm in agreeance (well, I am talking sport) with The Prof, nevertheless...

1. I agree with his point that flexion of a quicky or a legal offie as centrifugal force and the weight of the ball drags their arm back is not the same thing as the flexion Murali uses to allow his wrist to turn to deliver both his offie and the other one. The fasties get little to no advantage unless they blatantly ping it; Murali WOULD NOT be able to bowl without his base structural contortions.

2. I can pick Murali's 'one that goes the other way' every time off the telly. It is markedly different to his 'one that doesn't go the other way'. That being so, at least one of them must be dodgy because it beggars belief that BOTH are within the 15 degree limit. (Adsy - Haydos. LBW. Kandy.)

3. I would love to see the research that says Dennis Lillee, Fred Trueman, Ray Lindwall, Harold Larwood, Demon Spofforth and umm ... Graeme Beard throw. I would also love to see the rumpus that ensued were someone bold enough to release that research.

4. I would love to see TV cameras accurately measure the flex of a bowler's arm. I would also love to see the measured angle up on the screen beside the ball's kilometres/miles per hour reading.

5. I would love to see anyone - umpire, match ref, Stakeholders Sutherland, Dave Richardson, Bruce Elliot, Daryl Foster, Tony Grieg or Uncle Tom Cobley - call a bowler for chucking at 16 degrees.

6. I would love the umpires to call a no-ball as they see it and have the players accept the decision, like Richie did with Meckiff.

7. I know 6 = pipe dream.

Moskow's pitches are roads compared to the minefields in western Russia and the white-tops in Siberia.

[Tony.T]

"to paraphrase Orwell, some are more bent than others"

It sounds more like you're paraphrasing Chisolm from Minder.

[Carrot]

Back in London now. Moscow's a great place, it's a bitch to get to with all the visas and whatnot, but it's worth it. Dunno about the pitches! But I did read that there is a Moscow cricket club, run by a few die-hard 'Strayans I think. If my weekend was anything to go by I wouldn't be surprised if you could play pretty decent cricket there though, it was stinkin' hot when I arrived, and a very nice 25 degrees for the rest of the time. I did read that they're trying to get the Ruskies into rugby as well. I must get into the habit of remembering where I "read" all these things!

Prof, I don't think that chucking is a recent phenomenon. I think that what we've found is that there is no such thing as a pure action. Talk to anyone you like, Glenn McGrath's action is an exercise in perfection from a fast bowling perspective, and it's just silly to think of it as anything else. That's why he was so accurate, and so good, for so long. There's just no way, that if HE had a 12 degree kink (or whatever you want to call it), that those other people you cite didn't too, to varying degrees. And THAT'S why they've changed the law - it had completely unrealistic expectations as it stood.

Tone, I can't see how you can point out that expecting umpires to tell what's legal or not is silly in point 5, and then go on to say that they should in point 6. Asides from which, Meckiff DIDN'T chuck, it was the wrong decision. Footage of his action vindicates him.

[Tony.T]

Au contraire, Carrotski.

My points regarding points 5 & 6: it's a stupid rule that expects an umpire to try to judge between 15 and 16 degrees. (That includes any other officials, not just the central umpires. If Murali bowled EVERY ball at 16 degrees would anyone ever call him?) The umpire should assess whether it's ANY degrees. It's much easier to spot A bend as they used to, rather than spot HOW MUCH of a bend as they do now. If the umpire thinks there's any angle, he calls it and the bowler accepts it. The bowler mightn't like it, but that's sport.

What footage cleared Meckiff? The stuff I've seen has him bending his arm, probably less than today's 15 degrees, but bending his arm nevertheless. So as the rules stood then, he chucked. Check these piccies, too.

[Carrot]

Tone, on the steppes they tend to refer to me as "Carrotovich".

I saw it in one of those stoopid feel-good profiles during a lunchtime "Cricket Show" or something. It was probably hosted by a Daddo or something, so not sure of the journalistic integrity. But they did say pretty categorically that "expects have analysed footage of his action and decided that he bowled legally" or summink.

[Tony.T]

Hmmmm. I detect trace elements of Simon O'Donnell.