THE QUESTIONCan Bhajji bowl the doosra?• While the ICC has effectively allowed Muttiah Muralitharan to bowl his doosra, can Harbhajan Singh expect the same? In the complex world of ‘chucking’ there are no straight answers.The ICC committee — Aravinda de Silva, Angus Fraser, Michael Holding, Tony Lewis, Tim May and David Richardson — has suggested a leeway of 15 degrees for spinners to bend their elbow. Biomechanical tests and ICC scrutiny during the Champions Trophy showed that Murali bent his elbow at 14.5 degrees, so Murali’s doosra is almost legal.Harbhajan hasn’t been through those tests but apparently his ‘wrong ’un’ measures about 22 degrees. So that’s over the legal limit, even when the more liberal laws come into effect.THE HISTORY• Like that other exotic bowling art, the reverse swing, the origins of the doosra can be traced to the bylanes of Pakistan, where cricket is played with a tennis ball strapped with electric tape. With his regular off-spinners not quite effective against the neighbourhood kids in the Lahore backstreets, Saqlain Mushtaq invented the doosra.The world came to know about the off-spinner’s googly during the 1999 Pakistan-Australia second Test at Hobart. Saqlain (6/46) ran through the Aussies and, at the post-match media conference, was asked about the mystery ball. Unusually tongue-tied, Saqlain gave a straight reply: ‘‘I call it the doosra’’.• Two years after Saqlain gave off-spin a new dimension, a young bowler was making his comeback — after sitting out nine straight Tests — against world champions Australia. Raising his game to suit the opposition, Harbhajan Singh showed the first signs of bowling the away-going ball. That historic 2001 series saw world cricket getting another new term: Turbanator. Later he said that the inspiration wasn’t Saqlain but Sachin Tendulkar. ‘‘At nets Tendulkar taught me to bowl the doosra with the new ball,’’ he said.• Muttiah Muralitharan had been sparingly using the doosra for some years but earlier this year, during the home series against Australia, the away-going ball was seen more often. Indeed, there were times when the regular off-spinner was bowled for variety. The Aussies won the series 3-0 but Murali got 28 wickets — and also a call from the ICC.• What Mushtaq Ahmed was to Abdul Qadir, Shoaib Malik is to Saqlain Mushtaq. Both offies have similar styles, so it was expected that Shoaib too would master the Saqlain doosra. Early 2000 saw Shoaib regularly bowling the doosra but without much effect. It was only his batting that kept him in the team. But even that indifferent bowling was enough to get him reported for chucking!
