Stumped RawalpindiHe has a normal head, but nestling between his massive shoulders it seems small. He is Shoaib Akhtar, "the Rawalpindi Express", the fastest recorded bowler of a cricket ball in history. And right now, before a small but baying crowd at the Rawalpindi Cricket Ground, he is steaming towards this correspondent. From 22 yards, Mr. Akhtar launches into the weirdly beautiful contortion that fast bowlers perform to hurl a six-ounce lump of cork and leather at up to 100mph. Half a second later, the ball demolishes the stumps.For over two centuries, cricket has been played according to a largely unwritten code of honour for the practical reason that its laws are too complicated for officials to enforce to the reality. But technology has been rewriting the old etiquette. And according to some recent research, one of cricket’’s most basic laws is untenable, and now the game is in turmoil.According to law 24. 3, bowlers may not straighten their arm in the final act of delivering the ball. This leads to Mr. Akhtar’’s brutal run-up and elaborate action as alternative means of generating pace on the ball. The centrality of law 24.3 to cricket — and the virtual impossibility of policing it — is reflected in the game’’s etiquette. To accuse a bowler of throwing the ball is one of the gravest insults in the game; yet now such accusations are flying thick and fast.Mr. Akhtar, the first man to bowl a delivery timed at 100mph, is one of a number of modern stars recently reported with "suspect actions". These rulings followed research into biomechanics that match officials had hoped would vindicate their decision.The University of Western Australia’’s School of Human Movement has been investigating cricket biomechanics.In 2003, a study by Marc Portus, at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, filmed a number of fast bowlers in action using a dozen cameras recording 250 frames per second. They showed that virtually all bowlers straighten their arm, or throw, to some extent. Mr. Akhtar flexes his arm more than most only because he is extremely double-jointed. And to confuse matters further, a brilliant Sri Lankan spin bowler, Muttiah Muralitharan bowls with a crooked arm only because a congenital condition prevents him straightening it fully.In an effort to restore sanity to matters, bowlers are now allowed a varying margin for error depending on the pace at which they bowl. Thus, fast bowlers are legally allowed to straighten their arm by 10°, medium pacers by 7.5° and slow bowlers by 5°. But even this innovation has been rapidly undone. Last month, for the third time in his illustrious career, and even though poised to break the all-time wicket-taking record, Mr. Muralitharan was reported with a suspect action. Though Mr. Muralitharan was previously cleared by biomechanics, an English match official questioned the legality of a wicked addition to his armoury of top-spinners, off-spinners and leg-spinners. It is nicknamed the "doosra", which in Hindi or Urdu means "second" or "other". Here the ball is delivered with a huge flick of Mr. Muralitharan’’s rubbery wrists and, according to many observers, a flexing of his elbow. Subsequent testing showed that Mr. Muralitharan flexes his arm by more than 10° when bowling the doosra, and the delivery could be banned.Sri Lanka, where Mr. Muralitharan is revered, is now seething while many Australians, who have long reviled him as a "chucker", are crowing. Should they pause for air, they would hear their own scientists cry foul. Last week, the scientists who tested Mr. Muralitharan admitted that they actually did not know much about the mechanics of spin bowling, and that he should receive no censure. When it comes to cricket, science may be stumped.
he is revered in Sri Lanka
