Tags:
Journalism of Courage
int(3)
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has bought into the debate over Muttiah Muralitharan’s controversial bowling action, labelling the Sri Lankan off-spinner a chucker.
Howard, a keen cricket fan, was asked at a lunchtime meeting of party faithful on the New South Wales south coast today if Murali threw the ball when he bowled and he replied: “Yes.”
“They proved it in Perth too, with that thing,” he added, drawing an image of a video screen with his hands. Muralitharan, the top Test wicket-taker of all time with 521 wickets, has a genetic defect which stops him from fully straightening his bowling arm upon delivery. Perth-based biomechanics experts subsequently tested him and initially found he straightened his bent arm by 14 per cent in bowling a delivery tagged the ‘doosra’. Under remedial work Murali reduced the arm straightening to 10 per cent, which is still twice the amount allowable for spinners under International Cricket Council regulations governing illegal bowling actions.
