Blogs Finally a chucker from the ‘other’ side
April 17th, 2009 by kapoorWell, it may sound a bit discriminating but I am sure that some of the Asian bowlers, particularly those who have been often harassed by the securitisation of the ICC would be happy at this — Botha from South Africa has been reported for suspect action. In a way, it seems fair that finally we have a spin bowler who isn’t from the Indian subcontinent to be reported. The likes of Saqlain and Murali and even Harbhajan faced career-threatening hold-ups created by various technical committees that constituted mainly of certain English and Australian decision-makers.
What is remarkable though is that again a bowler has been reported only after he made some impact against the ‘more’ noticeable Aussies, assuming that it takes a bit longer for the whole world to realize what is happening to the sub-continental players. I think that is what Bucknor knew all along when he kept on raising his finger against the Indian batsmen when they played Australia, Down Under, last season.
Moving on, how the Botha question will be resolved would give a definite idea about how far the South African cricket board is ready to back its players. The BCCI has acted very staunchly in supporting its players and we can expect the same from the South Africans, now that their importance in the cricket world has been further raised with them inching closer to becoming the top-rated team and by hosting the IPL. I guess just the fact that South Africa have bailed out the BCCI by hosting IPL’s second instalment will ensure that no major harm comes its way and BCCI’s clout backing can be assured in this case at least.
From a personal perspective, Botha’s action seems as suspect as any of the spin bowlers who have played the game in the last decade. There are numerous off-spinners that tend to javelin the ball when bowling the faster-ones and reprimanding each of them is just not possible. I still don’t know how Shoaib Malik can still carry on bowling — I mean, you can practically see the guy stop at the time of delivering the ball and then arm it through, at least it does look to me.
Pat Symcox, a one time bowler for South Africa, once said that every off-spinner is guilty of arming balls every now and then. It is just a question of who gets noticed and who gets away. Maybe it is something about an off-spinner’s action. We seldom hear about leg spinners getting reported or does my memory fail me yet again?
April 18th, 2009 at 10:42 am
It is an interesting point you brought up. That only off-spinners get pulled up for chucking. You got me thinking there!
As for why leg spinners do not get pulled up for it, I guess you can attribute it to the way they bowl. A leg spinner bowls the ball using his wrist, and the ball usually comes out from behind the hand. The googly and the flipper also are bowled in much the same way. If you try to bowl it yourself, you will realize that it will be very difficult to bend your arm at the elbow while bowling the ball from behind the hand. And since it is difficult and not a natural motion, chucking usually doesn’t happen in case of a leg spinner. This is just my theory though!
The most interesting thing though is, that none of the left arm orthodox leg spinners have been pulled up for chucking. Technically, they deliver the ball much the same way as the right-handed off spinners bowl. Something to think about??
I guess it may come down to a simple fact. Leg spin bowling is much more difficult to play than off spin bowling. So do the off spinners have to resort to various ‘other’ tactics to be as effective as the leg spinners (both orthodox or left arm) ??
April 18th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Oh… sorry if I hijacked the thread from a discussion on discrimination to the technical aspects!
April 20th, 2009 at 12:20 am
i guess there is one more indication to why off-spinning is an easier art than leg-spinning> nearly all the part-timers, i would say a majority of them bowl off-spin only, i.e. apart from the left-armers like Yuvi > this might be some sort of an indication that off-spinning does involve a bit of throwing tendency thereby making it easy > there are very few part-time leg spinners> i remember Bevan having a strange left-arm leg spin action but it did look very genuine.