Good mourning! PCB should introduce a handbook of all their dark chapters and controversies suffered in their cricket. The newest is banning unarguably the best bowler across all cricket formats since 2011, Saeed Ajmal, from international cricket.
The decision to ban him was taken after an ICC accredited team of bio-mechanics experts tested his action at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane. All his deliveries are reported illegal and bending more than 15 degrees which actually is critical.
There are two ways to review this decision, one as an emotional Pakistani cricket supporter and two, as following cricket with the rules and laws of the game.
As a Pakistani cricket supporter, it is a disaster as we heavily rely every single game on Misbah’s bat and Ajmal’s ball. And that put Pakistan at least HALF of chances losing the next world cup (if he is not coming back). That is why PCB’s worst management and beyond-understanding domestic infrastructure never future-planned for possible back-up players. Abdur Rehman and Zulfiqar Babar are all at career-end stages with no huge threats to batsmen.
As a genuine follower by rules and laws of the game, we have to accept the decision critically keeping in mind that with the change of ICC’s administrative hands, Saeed wasn’t the first to be suspected for bowling actions. Saeed is one of actually 5 bowlers suspected since new setup of ICC.
Lets not say that BCCI’s strong hands in ICC’s newest setup is monitoring possible low of arch-rivals Pakistan. This will be very emotional and pathetic thinking as most of the Pakistani cricket supporters think to that level sadly. This very Saeed Ajmal is currently no.1 ODI bowler in Reliance-sponsored international cricket rankings. Plus, Lahore Lions are recently issued Indian visa to play CLT20 in India.
Last of all I must say that with the passage of time and changing the laws and rules of the game, administrators have made this game more of the game of ‘batsman’ and entertain him more independence. The bowlers, once who were the mighty assassins towards the batsmen known for their rocket pace and agonized bouncers in the past, are handcuffed with many restrictions like limiting bouncers, overstepping, bending arming below a certain degree. There are reasons why today bowlers are no more a threat. There are reasons with introduction of new mechanisms in cricket, why bowlers are not bowling that quick as they used to in the past. Anyone remember who was the last to bowl at 155kph??? Hard to imagine that was bloody normal in the 70s and 80s!!!
Had cricket’s nowadays administrators were managing the game 40 years ago, cricket would certainly not witness a single ‘world-class’ bowler to date…
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Sami Naik | Film Critic 