DOOSYA KNOW WHAT'S MISSING?

The following patronising article employs the Kelly Defence. "The man's a notorious bandit and killed coppers, but that's OK, he's loves his mum".

Also, see if you can guess which word is missing:

Dissenters can now agree Murali is a champion

Muttiah Muralitharan's career has been a tale of astonishing achievement and unending controversy. No one has watched him with a cold heart. Spectators have enjoyed his prodigious deliveries. Captains have protected their matchwinner or complained about the architect of their downfall. Supporters have sung his praises and critics have gnashed their teeth. All have seen something different.

Now Murali stands at once as a champion and an outcast. His record-breaking performance will provoke a mixture of congratulation and resentment. Even in triumph, Murali cannot command the respect sought by every man and craved by every performer. His head must be spinning as much as his sharpest off break. He has deserved better from the game than a mixture of hysterical support and abject condemnation.

Cricket has not known what to do with him. Batsmen have prodded and padded, swept and swiped. Umpires have been inconsistent. Crowds have cheered and catcalled. Commentators have raged. Officialdom has searched in vain for a satisfactory resolution. Everything and nothing has happened. Murali has kept bowling. Indeed, the laws of the game have been changed to accommodate him. His career has been a confusion. Years have passed and he remains in limbo. But it has not all been bad. The game has bent over backwards to save him. After all, he is still playing.

Murali has been an extreme instance of a long-standing trauma. Cricket has never been at ease with bent-arm bowling. Over the years, the issue has been a test the game has failed. Not that Murali has been an easy case. No one had considered the possibility of sending the ball down with a back rather than forward jerk. All the regulations had been produced to eliminate the sort of actions seen in coconut shys. Now and then, bad habits crept in, whereupon governing bodies were obliged to intervene. Mostly, the situation was under control. Then came Murali.

Murali was exonerated years ago and that should have been the end of it.At first, little attention was paid to him. After all, the charming Tamil from a Catholic school had inspired a nation. Moreover, Sri Lanka was a new force and few had the stomach to deny them their main weapon. Officials hoped it might pass. Paul Adams had not lasted long. Once batsmen became accustomed to his contortions, they realised that he did not turn or bounce the ball enough to trouble the trained.

But Murali did not fade away. Eventually, cricket realised that there was more to him than met the eye. Batsmen were mesmerised by his action but the element of surprise was merely part of the effect. Murali turned the ball more than anyone else. His deliveries seemed to spin at right angles. His control was unerring and he could bowl long spells. In other words, he was a handful. And he was not going to go away.

Not that the Lankan has been alone in his unorthodoxy. Indeed, the focus upon him has been overdone. Harbhajan Singh, Saqlain Mushtaq and others have also explored the outer limits of their craft. Spin was on its knees until these fellows came along. It is odd that these operators have provoked such debate. Over the years, fast bowlers have thrown their quicker balls, rubbed in creams, raised the seam, applied bottle tops and much else without attracting undue interest. And they can hurt people. Inevitably, spinners also sought an edge as a means of survival. Accordingly, they tried to add to their repertoire by experimenting with arm, wrist and finger actions.

Murali was blessed with features that allowed him to perform feats with a cricket ball previously considered impossible. His flexibility of limb allows him to twist his bowling arm and flick his wrist at a pace and to a degree that stretches the concept of bowling. Beyond effective imitation, he was not so much leading the charge of the spinners as heading in the same direction.

Now he holds the world record for wickets taken in Tests. It is a well deserved honour. He has been examined, tested, exposed, taunted and demeaned for long enough. In criminal matters, a man cannot be tried twice for the same offence. Murali was exonerated years ago and that should have been the end of it. Unfortunately, the verdict was not universally accepted and the controversy rages on.

It is time for a little respect. Murali has been through enough. He has taken his place in the record books where he sits alongside some extraordinary characters whose weak points have been forgotten and whose stirring performances will be remembered until the last ball has been bowled.

That's right, if you guessed "doosra" is missing you'd be correct  -- possibly you read the headline.

And not only is doosra the missing word, but it's virtually ignored:

Murali was exonerated years ago and that should have been the end of it.

But it's not "the end of it". Everyman and his guide dog now knows the Doosra is a rank chuck, even Spankles, who recently wrote:

Undoubtedly the delivery is to be declared illegal, and rightly so, because it is ugly and the elbow does straighten.

Granted remedial action is on the go, but for the Spankmeister to ignore the Doosra, which happens to be the hot topic du jour, smacks -- oops -- of wanton selectivity.

Comments

[chris88]

From the article: "Over the years, fast bowlers have thrown their quicker balls, rubbed in creams, raised the seam, applied bottle tops and much else without attracting undue interest. And they can hurt people."

Without attracting undue interest???!!?!? Is that the best you can do to legitimise Murali's cheating Peter, to profer complete bullshit about fast bowlers.

Geez, he's getting worried.

He's. A. Chucker. Read these words and repeat

[Adsy]

I liked the next line on:

"Inevitably, spinners also sought an edge as a means of survival. Accordingly, they tried to add to their repertoire by experimenting with arm, wrist and finger actions."

Yeah, by flexing their arms beyond the LEGAL limits, allowing them to spin the ball more than the Paul Adamses and other genuine spinners of the world and therefore taking wickets 'by default' in my opinion.

And further:

"No one had considered the possibility of sending the ball down with a back rather than forward jerk. All the regulations had been produced to eliminate the sort of actions seen in coconut shys"

Now thats a crock of shit if ever I have heard it. People have eyes. I don't hear anyone saying "Oh he doesn't chuck it because it comes out of the back of his hand" A throw is a throw is a throw. Is a throw! His backwards yo-yo action has more to do with his wrist action doesn't it? Maybe I have Murali all wrong. Who knows?

But the Original Spankster summed up this whole issue with this line...

"Officialdom has searched in vain for a satisfactory resolution. Everything and nothing has happened. Murali has kept bowling. Indeed, the laws of the game have been changed to accommodate him"

To continue with my paraphrasing, of Tony this time... "Hayden. LBW. Kandy."

[Tony.T]

It's a stupid article, Chris. Rank apologia with a bucketload of disingenuous fact evasion smeared with a glut of heart-string tugging. He sounds like Terry Wallace.

And how about....

"In criminal matters, a man cannot be tried twice for the same offence."

Flagrant bending of the truth. The doosra is NOT the same offence. What's more, Roebuck knows it and chooses to ignore it.

The more I think of it, the more it occurs that the article's got more holes than Swiss cheese. To be even blunter, it's a fuck-up all round.

"He's. A. Chucker." Ahhh, that's better.

Ads, I wasn't aware you'd seen the Haydos dismissal. As gross a toss as ever there was.

Did you notice the TV cameras in Sri Lanka generally spent fuck all time highlighting Murali's action. Nearly all the slo-mo dismissal replays started with the ball leaving the bowlers hand with scant attention paid to the action in full. I may be getting paranoid, and it may just be that the resources in Sri Lanka weren't as good, but just imagine if Channel 9 were on the job.

However, you occasionally got a good look a ball, and the Hayden dismissal in Kandy was one. Not that I needed a slo-mo replay to spot it, normal speed showed it clearly. The upshot? Anyone who denies that ball was a chuck is a dead set liar. (I reckon 30 degrees at least) And anyone who thinks Murali is going to put that amount of work on the ball in the UWA sheds is also a liar.

"Hayden. LBW. Kandy." Betterer.

[D`Anerah[IW]]

A chucker!

Someone who vomits after a hard night on the piss.

Right?

[Adsy]

Yeah I was watching when he rolled that ball down. "He's kidding isn't he" were the first words out of my mouth when he bowled it too. A bit strange seeing I was talking to myself but the fact I answered myself with "He's got to be!" was even worse.

There's no doubt that if he bowled like that in any country with developed camera systems the doubt about his legitimacy would vanish.

Actually I will rephrase: in countries with developed camera systems THAT DON'T TRY TO HIDE HIS ACTION FROM WORLD VIEW BY NOT SHOWING IT UP CLOSE...

I have some questions though: Seeing Murali was reported, went through testing to see how far he threw it, was shown to be outside the law by DOUBLE the amount... then why the fork is he still bowling? What has the ICC done about the findings? If he is allowed to play, then why is he still allowed to bowl the delivery in question? I heard he took a couple of wickets with the dodgy doosra against the Zims, and whilst its a long bow to draw, which poor young blokes' international career has he wrecked by bowling this illegal delivery?? In Australia's point of view, Big Roy Symonds could have seen his test aspirations dented, perhaps permanently because of Murali getting him out on a number of occasions over there.

Just a suggestion, dunno how practical it is, but could you employ the same kind of camera that is used in the Matrix films (You know the part where Trinity jumps in the air to kick that coppers head in and the cameras are able to pan around 360 degrees) to film Murali in a game? You could watch him bowl from every concievable angle, none of this bullshit about optical illusions, and armed with the report showing that he chucks it TWICE as much as is allowed, you could present a watertight case that would go along the lines of:

Fix it up or fork off... or words to that effect.

[Adsy]

Another Hawks style apology:

Please disregard my previous post as I obviously didn't read the above mentioning that the ICCC (International Cricket Council of Crap) had come out with their statement. I'm sorry for anyone I may have offended or hurt due to my behaviour, especially my family and girlfriend (imaginary so she will understand) and I am distraught at getting them into this situation. Cue tear wiping at this point...

He's still throws it...

[Clem Snide]

When I was a nipper, I had Roebuck as a cricket coach during a one week cricket school he ran during school holidays. I learned quite a few useful tips, but my lasting memory of him was his pedantic insistence on fieldsmen returning the ball OVER the stumps to the bowler or keeper, as against hitting the stumps, even when the ball was patted away to an infield position. As umpire in our practise games, he reduced the non-striker's end to a single stump. If a ball was returned by a fieldsman that looked like hitting the single stump, Roebuck would put his hand in front to catch the ball in order to prevent a run out, or simply refuse to give the run out if the ball hit the stumps at the other end. On the other hand, if ball was returned over the stump, he would grab the ball, tap the stump and give the batsman out, even if he made his ground. I'm glad Ricky Ponting never had him as a fielding coach.

With the boundaries of our playing area somewhat ill-defined, he was also wildly inconsistent in calling fours, with the decision being influenced more by the closeness of the game than the distance that the ball travelled. I mention all this because I think it puts Roebuck's world view in some sort of perspective.