Review process cut for suspect bowlers

BOMBAY: The International Cricket Council (ICC) have decided to shorten their review process for suspect bowling action, the world body an-nounced yesterday.

Currently, any player reported for “chucking” is put through two stages of corrective steps. The first involves working with his national board and, if the problem persists, with a bowling review group of the ICC.
But chief executive Malcolm Speed said the ICC planned to do away with the first stage to simplify the process following a suggestion by India’s Sunil Gavaskar, who heads their playing committee. “We can then take action as soon as possible and also the players can go back to play early,” he said. A final decision is expected at a meeting of the playing committee next year.

“It is a complex issue, made more complex by the advent of sport science and the fact that we have very high quality slow-motion replays of bowlers’ actions,” he told reporters. “The committee felt the interests of players, both bowlers and batsmen, are a bit strained by the two-stage process.” The subject came under the spotlight again in May after West Indian Jermaine Lawson was reported for a suspect bowling action. Australian Brett Lee and Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar are other leading fast bowlers to have their actions queried since the throwing controversy was revived in 1995 with the no-balling of Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.