The ban on Saeed Ajmal, wondrous off-spinner-cum- doosra bowler is not just about one player’s illegal action. It may be the beginning of yet another major change in the history of our continuously developing game. Let’s hope so.
Please do not be shocked if sometime in the next 20 years there are many bowlers of the Ajmal delivery, also using an arm action that has twice the flexion compared with the 15 degrees laid down in the current ICC rules. It has all happened before.
In the dark ages, everyone bowled underarm and found that a limiting method. Later the law-makers allowed a bowler to bring his arm to shoulder level.
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They damned every man who turned his arm over above the shoulder but that could never last and somewhere in the mid-19th century bowlers developed what we now know as the legitimate delivery, arm brushing the ear.
It looks beautiful but, cricketers being inventive souls, there was a move to improve on nature.
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The straight arm was not good enough for a spin bowler inspired by the American pitcher. He began to experiment with a bent arm.
Out of nowhere this tester of the waters found he could by presenting the back of his hand to the batsman produce a ball moving from leg to off, undetected until it rested in the hands of short slip or wicket-keeper via the edge of the bat, of course.
Naturally it was the men with especially supple wrists who made the most of this ball; the very name doosra tells everyone that it came from the Indian sub-continent.
It soon caused trouble. I stood with a well-known, universally admired umpire at the nets in Sharjah as we watched Muttiah Muralitharan. “What do you think of that?” I asked as Murali made the ball perform tricks. “Dodgy, no comment, very dodgy,” he replied and hurried away lest I lure from him the words on the tip of his tongue.
You know what happened next. Murali collected scores of wickets, won matches for Sri Lanka, ran into trouble with strict, forthright and determined Australian umpires, was tried by media, tested by ICC and finally allowed to take 800 Test wickets.
Immediately you could not travel a road on the sub-continent without seeing scores of lads with bent arms producing mystery balls of every description.
Now we have Ajmal, damned like Murali, but banned with an announcement that he has twice the permitted bend in the elbow.
In the next few years there is a chance for ICC to look to the future in which perhaps there will be a proper assault on the American market where baseball pitchers bend the elbow by right.
Those spectators will not demand traditional straight arms; indeed they may reject such inhibiting ideals.
Let’s face it; we do not have to stop at the straight arm. I have often wondered how the bat might change to produce a better reverse sweep. Wouldn’t the back of bat be more useful if it was ridged, or lumps all over it?
What about the fielder? Surely it is time he was allowed to wear a glove on the field as he frequently does in practice? The great Godfrey Evans never wore a helmet but now it seems as natural as breathing when a keeper dons a helmet.
If half these suggestions come to pass cricket will be an even more fascinating game and still give the old codgers room to grumble “the game is nothing like it was in my day.”
It might be even more enjoyable than it is today. If that is possible.