BEND IT LIKE CHUCK'EM

Thanks to Perth's finest cub reporter, comes this ripper from John Townsend in the West Australian:

Muralitharan bends it too far

World cricket may have faced greater crises in its past but it has never experienced a greater farce.

The Muttiah Muralitharan circus has a ringmaster, enough clowns to fill a big top and a disbelieving audience gaping at each extraordinary swing from low point to low point.

Bring on the dancing pandas.

Muralitharan bends it too far World cricket may have faced greater crises in its past but it has never experienced a greater farce. The Muttiah Muralitharan circus has a ringmaster, enough clowns to fill a big top and a disbelieving audience gaping at each extraordinary swing from low point to low point. And now he is threatening that the circus will not come to Australia in July. Muralitharan has taken umbrage at Prime Minister John Howard answering "yes" when asked whether he thought the world record holder was a chucker. He has decided to retaliate by not taking part in the two Tests in northern Australia in July. The off-spinner, who has taken just three Test wickets in Australia at 116 apiece, considers himself bigger than the game. No wonder. He has been treated that way by Sri Lanka and an International Cricket Council afraid for years to act with moral rigour, intellectual vigour or the best interests of the game at heart. Until Muralitharan was proved by the University of WA to chuck his doosra, he was cricket's most protected species. Even now, with the bent-elbow doosra's illegality exposed, those who comment about him are more likely to feel the wrath of cricket's masters than those who breach the laws of the game. The most recent splash in the stagnant pond surrounding Muralitharan was the one-Test ban handed to Zimbabwe batsman Dion Ebrahim who made the outrageous claim that a chucker who had been proved to be a chucker was actually a chucker. Big deal for Dion. He will be saved from further damaging his batting average against Australia this week in a Test that may be the biggest mismatch in the game's history. But when a player expressing an honestly held and now scientifically confirmed opinion is treated more sternly than other players who have thrown matches, given away their wickets for money, chucked the ball in direct contravention of the laws or behaved in a manner on the field that would have them sent to the corner of the room in a kindergarten class, you know the sport is struggling to get its priorities in order. Another splendid folly has developed after the ICC acted on the UWA study, with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahindra Rajapakse threatening to take legal action over the decision to ban the doosra. How is he going to sue? And where? And on what grounds? The laws of cricket serve a purpose by forcing all players to adhere to reasonable patterns of behaviour and, in theory anyway, prevent anyone from taking unfair advantage. If the Sri Lankan Prime Minister does not comprehend this, the circus will need a new tent to fit in all the new acts cricket is about to entertain. Perhaps we don't need it to come to town after all.

Comments

[Snr Nubi]

Superb article from the 'Worst' Australian..Might have to rename it the 'Honest Aust'. Never been a big fan of the circus, however this is one that never should have been allowed into the 'Big Top'. It puts Silvers to shame..Which is a shame!!

[Clem Snide]

Surely it's time for Lee/Gillespie/Kasprowicz to start putting their front feet down half a metre in front of the crease and throwing full tosses at the batsmen's heads. Then when the umpire calls a no ball, they can say "What do you mean, no ball? That was my doosra." Then in front of the tribunal, they can argue that it was only chin-high, not head-high, and therefore not in violation of the rules.

Well it seems to work for some bowlers anyway.