BBC SPORT | CRICKET | Chucking: Why the fuss?

If you really want to wound a politician, call their honour into question.

If you want to humiliate a composer, tell them their new tune sounds familiar.

And if you want to crush a cricketer, tell them their bowling action is actually a throw.

Being called a chucker is the ultimate cricketing humiliation, bringing into question a player's skill, his honesty, and his achievements.

1. A conventional start
After all, anybody can throw a ball at the batsman, but bowling it with a straight arm is half the art of cricket - and one of the first things children learning to play cricket are taught.

The latest high-profile figure to fall foul of the game's most notorious law is Brett Lee, Australia's pace bowling sensation, whose action has been questioned by the International Cricket Council.

Lee is just the latest in a recent spate of stars to suffer the ignominy of being branded a chucker.

2. But as Murali brings his arm over. . .

Sri Lanka's 26-year-old spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, also known as Murali, faced a long struggle to clear his name.

His team-mate and fellow off-spinner Kumara Dharmasena spent more than a year out of the game remodelling his action after warnings from the authorities that his action breached the rules.

And Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar - rated the fastest bowler in the world - was accused of throwing when he delivered his short-pitched bouncer. Shoaib was initially suspended from Test cricket - but subsequently had his ban overturned by the ICC.

3. . . .his arm is clearly not straight

But it is not just the big names of the sport who have fallen foul of the controversy. Jimmy Kamade, medium-pacer with cricketing minnows Kenya, found himself in hot water over the same issue during last year's World Cup.

But why has the question of chucking proved such a thorny one for cricket's authorities?

Putting it simply, a throw (according to the rules of the game) is one that comes from the elbow.

4. But it turns out it's a medical problem anyway
Darts players, javelin throwers, shot-putters - they all bend the arm to get maximum leverage from it. Bowlers must not or the umpire will call no-ball (or in the cricketing jargon, the umpire will "call" the player).

Murali, for one, had an excuse. Because of a slight deformity of his elbow, he is unable to straighten his arm.

So although it may look like he is bending his limb when bowling, officials have decided, he is not. His action, therefore, is within the rules.

The Sri Lankan is, without doubt, a remarkable cricketer who is able to spin the ball all over the place, and take wickets at an alarming rate. Only two players have ever taken 200 Test wickets in fewer matches than him.

And yet there's that Achilles elbow.

Ironically, considering Brett Lee's emergence as the latest alleged "chucker", Australian passions on the subject tend to run particularly high.

Shoaib Akhtar: The Rawalpindi Express was de-railed for a time
It was an Australian umpire, Ross Emerson, who sparked the fury of Sri Lankan skipper Arjuna Ranatunga when he no-balled Muralitharan in a one-day match against England.

Emerson was strongly criticised, after TV replays showed the particular bowl was no different from others Murali was bowling.

And another Aussie umpire, Darrell Hair, was disciplined by the ICC after publishing a book in which he called Murali's action "diabolical". Hair no-balled him seven times in 1995.

But it is not just the Lee episode that brings a hint of irony to Australia's generally trenchant line on chucking.

It was, after all, an Australian player Ernest Jones, who was the first Test player to be no-balled for throwing, in 1897-98. Strict umpiring put a stop to the problem, and until the 1950s, it hardly happened.

Umpire Ross Emerson provo
Tony Lock, a Surrey slow left-arm spinner, was occasionally no-balled in the 1950s when he bowled a quicker ball. He resolved the situation by sticking to his slow ball.

Australian Ian Meckiff was criticised in the press during the same period. And on the 1960 tour of England, South African Geoff Griffin was no-balled 11 times. He responded by bowling underarm.

The case of Meckiff was also averted in the end - for after he was no-balled four times in one over in the Brisbane Test against South Africa in 1963-64, he did not bowl in the match again and announced his retirement shortly afterwards, aged 32.

Nor are bowlers the only ones to suffer, for it reflects badly on umpires who call, particularly if their decision is questioned.


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