ICC justifies crackdown on bowlers having illegal actions

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday reportedly justified its crackdown on bowlers having illegal actions and vowed to only allow unorthodox deliveries like the 'doosra' within the rules.

Cricket's world governing body in its major drive to root out the problem of illegal deliveries suspended high profile bowlers like Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal, Sri Lanka's Sachitra Senanayake, Zimbabwe's Prosper Utseya and Bangladesh's Sohag Gazi in the last four months.

Under the ICC rules bowlers are permitted to straighten their bowling arm up to 15 degrees, which has been established as the point at which any straightening would become visible to the naked eye, Sport24 reported.

ICC chief executive David Richardson said that rules must be followed. He said that the principle has always been to make sure that they try and stick to the law, which says that one must bowl the ball and not throw it.

Richardson said that the majority of stakeholders do not agree on bending the rule to allow off-spinners like Ajmal to bowl the doosra, a controversial delivery that turns the other way than a normal off-spin.

He said that they had that debate that should we allow a change in the law, to allow them to straighten their arm to bowl the doosra, there were arguments but majority said 'no' and said stick to the law.

Richardson said that if one wants to promote the unorthodoxy then there are people in the history of the game like Australian spinner Johnny Gleeson who suddenly learnt how to spin the ball with his fingers.

The ICC boss added that there are legitimate ways one could do something special without changing the principle, so they hopefully encourage the unorthodox action or deliveries but within the rules.