Pakistan coach Waqar Younis has questioned the timing of cricket authorities’ crackdown against chucking just months away from the 2015 World Cup, and suggested rules on bowling actions be relaxed for spinners.
The pace legend said all-rounder Mohammed Hafeez’s confidence was shattered after he was reported for a suspect action in the Champions League Twenty20, a fresh blow to Pakistan following the loss of Saeed Ajmal to a chucking ban. Ajmal, the world’s leading one-day bowler, faces a race against time to complete remedial work by the World Cup, to be held from February in Australia and New Zealand.
He was suspended earlier this month after he was found to straighten his elbow up to 43 degrees – well beyond the 15 degree limit prescribed under the rules, the point where a kink becomes noticeable to the naked eye.
Since then, Hafeez and Sunil Narine have been among four players reported during CLT20. Though the action has no direct bearing on international cricket, Waqar said the bowlers would now be under intense scrutiny.
“I know they have reported him (Hafeez) under a process but that is confidence-shattering for one of our key bowlers,” he said.
“Is this the right time to enforce the protocols and the technology? I am asking this because every team plans ahead of the World Cup, and the suspensions will badly hit the teams whose bowlers got suspended or questioned. I mean the protocols and the technology should have been enforced after the World Cup."
Waqar suggested the ‘doosra’, an off-spinner’s lethal delivery that turns the other way, could not be bowled legally and the ICC should amend their laws to accommodate it.
“When a bowler bowls a doosra, his elbow must bend beyond limits, that’s natural and I think a solution must be found,” he added.
