KIWI UNDERHAND STINKS

Those flightless cricketers can flock off:

Slinger Shaun Tait brands New Zealand a disgrace

STUNNED paceman Shaun Tait has branded New Zealand "a disgrace" for questioning his action ahead of the Chappell-Hadlee one-day series opener at Adelaide Oval today.

Black Caps skipper Daniel Vettori shocked journalists by speculating on the merits of Tait's slinging action during yesterday's pre-match press conference.

Vettori inferred coach John Bracewell had concerns about aspects of Tait's action, saying: "Braces is a better man to comment rather than me, but whenever someone bowls fast I think those questions are asked."

"I think people are going to speculate on it. Whenever someone bowls fast it's the first thing people look at and it's up to people who are able to comment on it, to comment on it.

"He bowls fast and over 150km/h so whenever somebody like that steps up into the game of international cricket, people take notice."

[TT: No one ever "took notice" of Thompson, Lillee, Roberts when they stepped into international cricket and bowled fast and over 150km/h. They took cover.]

Champion off-spinner Vettori was responding to what appeared to be a prearranged question from a New Zealand journalist.

Ok, tin tacks here.

Tait's action is not pristine; if by pristine you mean Thommo. Nor are Lee's, Akhtar's or Malinga's. (And I don't mean Laslinger's low arm.) Each of them, at times, has had a kink in the action - Tait's is by far the least kinky. But if you are prepared to accept that "were Ian Meckiff playing today, he'd be fine", then you must also accept Tait, Lee, Akhtar and Malinga are also fine. The 15 degree rule has seen to that. Whether you agree with the rule is another thing.

Naturally, there will be a whole heapin' helpin' of what's good for the goose... "You bin Murali, but you refuse to bin Tait. You, Sir, are a double-dealing swine." Well, I categorically reject (pompous enough for ya?) any suggestion the kinks of Tait, Lee, Akhtar or Malinga are in any way similar to the structural travesties of Murali, Harby or Johan Botha. The former are fast bowlers with occasionally wobbly arms, that latter are blatant throwers. If an Aussie bowler came on the scene chucking offies like Murali, I would be the first person to jump up and down. And apart from anything else, Murali and Botha have botha been cited as chuckers, Tait hasn't.

(To my knowledge the only fast bowler with a hideous action is Jermaine Lawson.)

So, where does that leave the Kiwis. Well, either they ARE NOT aware of the rule change, which makes them dumb cvnts, or they ARE aware of the rule change, which makes them sly cvnts. Which do you think it is? Keep in mind John Bracewell is involved, so it's probably a bit of both.

Former Test spinner Bracewell added fuel to the fire by instructing journalists to ask match referee Roshan Mahanama about the legality of Tait's action.

Like I said - sly. And devious.

Now, it could be a Mundine: an outrageous statement to drum up excitement. But I doubt it. More likely, after copping a hiding on Tuesday followed by a snipe from Tait they were scared, UnZud decided to pull a Sheedy: say something outrageous as a smokescreen.

Comments

[Uncle J Rod]

fancy getting that raw meat eater angry, even if you thought he chucked, you'd wait to the end of the series.

[Scott Wickstein]

See that guy that bowls really fast.... let's make him really angry so he bowls faster... great tactics that. The Kiwis should have kept their mouths shut until the end of the series.

Funny how no one had any complaints during the World Cup when Tait was bowling in front of the whole world.

[nick]

Some of the Kiwis have glass jaws. I nominate Vincent and Taylor to be injured first. Maybe Vettori could open the batting - he's done it before - and get a good look at Tait.

ps : Why can't Cricket Australia, baggygreen, and Cricinfo get together and put a button next to the matches so you can order a ticket! It seems to have been made extraordinarily difficult.

[Yobbo]

The other point is that a fast bowler chucking it doesn't help nearly as much as a spinner doing it. Especially a slinger like Tait or Malinga - them bending their arms at all is going to make them bowl worse, not better.

Whereas Murali's best ball is physically impossible to bowl without chucking.

[nick]

Tait a bit too excited. Definitely a jerky action. McCullum riding his luck. Vincent - awful shot, didn't look keen to be there.

[nick]

6 from 26 balls - more like Why than How.

[Ian Meckiff]

Slinger's are fine. Chucker's are fuckers.

BTW, since I'm legal, I'm available. Watch out kiwi's, I'm lookin' to put a hole in your chully bun.

[Tony T.]

Yob, that's the distinction the likes of Spanky refuse to make. In fact, he goes further saying things like 'it doesn't matter if a tweaking finger-guiler bends his arm, but it does matter if a quick leather-flinger bends his'. Rubbish! The guts is that spinners get a massive unfair advantage bending their elbow - quicks don't.

[Tony T.]

What's happening in the Chadlee, anyway? 3 for 135? Looks like we're chucking them another bone. Gotta keep them interested.

Super slow-mo on Larry Tait just looked OK.

[nick]

Wicketkeepers these days are gun batsmen. Power hitting, no pressure. Gilchrist, Haddin, Ronchi, Kalu, Sangers, Boucher, McCullum, Flower, Prior (maybe). Maybe we should get the buggers to have a bowl?

[Tony T.]

I like it that Haddin's in the wings, he mightn't be as good as Gilly, but he's a long way from a dud.

Apparently the Vic keeper, Wade, is pretty handy, too.

[nick]

'McCullum has a quad strain. Hobbling.' Fuck, he'll do a De Villiers and paste us all over the park...

[Tony T.]

What the hell?

35.1 Hogg to Taylor, SIX, badda-bing, badda-boom! Hogg proposes, Taylor accepts, simply getting down and swinging a nice loopy one over deep square leg for half a dozen.

[nick]

The Sopranos come to Cricinfo.

ps : I'm in the Adelaide Hills and it's beginning to look dark and stormy...

[Tony T.]

We'll probably end up with on dud end of a DuckyLoo.

[Tony T.]

Any chance the commentators will stop comparing Friday Oram with Tuesday Oram.

[Scott Wickstein]

I could go down to the game to watch them chase 255, but the clouds are gathering, and it's not like it's a Test match.

People that go to ODI games just encourage 'Stakeholders' Sutherland and his ilk to schedule more of them.

[nick]

Scott sums it up.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22924165-5006069,00.html

See you all on day 1 of the Boxing Day Test for some real cricket.

Should be beer, babes and blasting music at the 50/50 and the 20/20, and just babes (classier babes), beer (better beer), and good old fashioned cricket at the Tests.

[nick]

Lee showing some guile to get rid of McCullum, and if the pitch has this much life on it, the Indians will be quaking.

[Clem Snide]

I hate to agree with whiners like the Kiwis, but Tait did have an embarrassingly kinky action in the side-on slomo that I saw in the 20/20, not quite as blatant as Murali's, but certainly getting there. This talk that chucking doesn't help pace bowlers as much as it helps doosra peddlers is blatantly absurd, and makes its purveyors sound like the mirror image of Murali apologists. How else do you get an extra few kph out of a paceman without any extra effort? Neither Thommo nor Hadlee needed the kink to get their pace, but lesser bowlers might.

[Yobbo]

It's not absurb at all Clem. Bending the arm at the horizontal point before delivery does nothing to help a fast bowler. It's a technical fault in the action for sure but it doesn't have any effect.

On the other hand Murali's chucking makes him able to bowl a bowl that would be physically impossible otherwise.

Or do you think the reason no off-spinner of the last 100 years before Murali ever came up with such a ball just because they weren't smart enough to think of it?

[nick]

I claim no expertise on this, but wouldn't a straightening of the fast bowlers arm during delivery allow a little extra pace and bounce, analogous to using the wrist? That said, Tait is no Murali.

[Yobbo]

Nick the thing is when you watch the fast bowlers that chuck (and that's a fair few of them) the arm bends very early in the action, and has already straigtened before the arm gets to 30 degrees from vertical, and it's let go about 15 degrees after vertical.

I fail to see how any extra pace or bounce could be generated by straigtening the arm so early on in the action.

Whereas Murali is snapping his wrist back as he lets the ball go. It's a pretty different concept. It's not that he's generating any extra pace or bounce by bending his arm, it's that he's applying sideways rotation to it by straightening his arm (and therefore rotating his wrist) at the point of delivery.

Sideways rotation won't help a fast bowler (except maybe to bowl a slower ball), but it's a great help to a spinner.

[David Barry]

Yobbo: People generally agree that Saqlain Mushtaq was the first person to bowl a doosra. Murali got the idea from him.

[Yobbo]

Saqlain's Doosra is just a bog standard Outswinger. You can watch it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TxkaGeVtek

[Yobbo]

Makes sense since out of all the spinners who bowl the Doosra, Saqlain is the only one who hasn't had his action questioned (the others are Harbajhan, Shoaib Malik and Johan Botha). Saqlain's looks to be just a slow outswinger with a little bit of backspin on it, which any bowler could bowl. The trick is to diguise it well enough.

[Big Ramifications]

I hate to agree with whiners like the Kiwis, but Tait did have an embarrassingly kinky action in the side-on slomo that I saw

Cool, nick. So it wasn't just me.

Coz the first slo mo of him I saw I found myself subconsciously going "chucker!"

But I was too sked to disagree with Yobbo and this illustrious blog's owner.

And what everyone else said. Not nearly as bad as me old mate Murali, and quite probably within the new rules*.

*Be careful what you wish for, for it will surely be yours.

[Clem Snide]

Granted, if arm-straightening is completed well before delivery there wouldn't be much benefit, though there would still be some from the added momentum. However the obvious pace chuckers like Tait and Lee (e.g. see Lee's first wicket in the first Chappell-Hadlee match at the Telstra Dome) have straightening immediately before delivery. As Rene Ferdinands pointed out in
this old article on the subject, it is the angular velocity of straightening, not the absolute amount, that dictates the benefit gained, and lets jerky bowlers deliver at 160kph with little effort while staying within 15 degrees.

[Tony T]

Biggy Baby, me old Chuck Chunder, you're hardly going to cop my wrath of blog given I wrote this:

Tait's action is not pristine; if by pristine you mean Thommo. Nor are Lee's, Akhtar's or Malinga's. (And I don't mean Laslinger's low arm.) Each of them, at times, has had a kink in the action - Tait's is by far the least kinky.

But I certainly side with Yobbus Maximus when it comes to the spinner vs. quick argument. Spinners are gonna turn the ball a mile when they bend their arms; quicks are going to get rock all to fuck all assistance. What's more, if spinners thought what Muralee does was legal, they'd have been doing it since before W.G. Grace learnt to shave.

[Tony T]

Hmmm. Reading your article there, Clem, maybe I've been under-quoting quicks who chuck. Still, I maintain spinners get a greater advantage.

(Good article, but. How come I've not seen it before? Rhetorical question, that.)