South Africa take on Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar and his suspect bowling action in the Sharjah cricket final
Neil Manthorp
With apologies to Shoaib Akhtar, Pakistan threw down the gauntlet for today’s Sharjah final with enough force on Tuesday to send shock waves through the rest of the cricketing world. When South Africa’s 14- match unbeaten run against them ended on Tuesday night, it ended with a head-on, high-speed train crash. Well, they do call him the Rawalpindi Express.
Part of the problem for Hansie Cronje’s team may be mental. Simply put, they knew there was a problem with Shoaib’s action just over three years ago when coach Bob Woolmer had a quiet word with the match referee during the series in South Africa and suggested that it may be worth “having a look” at the speedster’s action. It was not a complaint – just “a word”.
Cronje, Shaun Pollock and Pat Symcox had been among the first to sit bolt upright on the Wanderers balcony when Shoaib began his second Test match in February 1998. “We thought there was something a bit wrong from very early on … pretty much immediately,” remembers Cronje.
One of the funniest aspects of the Sharjah tournament on television is hearing the likes of Barry Richards and Tony Greig choking for something to say when a Shoaib delivery is replayed in slow motion. “Well, just have a look at that …” stammers Greig, “… magnificent.”
Shoaib, of course, is doing a passable impression of javelin ace Marius Corbett but no one is allowed to say so. “Gosh, he really is very … fast,” concurs Barry.
When Shoaib was banned by the International Cricket Council (on the advice of their “illegal deliveries committee” – chucking panel to you and me) he quite rightly elicited the sympathy of just about everybody from armchair critic to coach to opponent. He was treated like a common criminal. He might as well have kicked his ball out of the rough during the monthly medal at Rawalpindi Golf and Country Club. The ICC members shunned him.
So club captain (ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya) decided unilaterally to pardon the miscreant and then all was forgotten, or rather forgiven. Michael Holding, a member of the panel that confirmed the problem with Shoaib’s action, said simply: “He delivers a significant number of balls with a straightening arm.” In other words, he chucks them. “I don’t believe he does it deliberately,” said Holding, “it’s just a technical thing that could be sorted out within a couple of weeks.”
Holding, remember, knows a thing or two about fast bowling. And he fixed Henry Olonga’s “problem”. In two weeks. But Shoaib simply had a couple of weeks off, caught loads of newspaper headlines and then came back with loads more unplayable, javelined yorkers and bouncers.
And the most fantastic, delicious irony – one shared by Cronje, incidentally – is that Shoaib is one of the best things that has happened to the game since Shane Warne. The irresponsible view is that he should be allowed to carry on just the way he is. Muttiah Muralitheran probably doesn’t “bowl” every ball that he delivers, but the ones he doesn’t are pure art. Shoaib, too, is a Jackson Pollock splash of calamitous colour, movement and excitement.
The responsible views are either that:
l the wording of the relevant clause in the “fair delivery” law should be altered to include something like “the bowler should, in the opinion of the umpire, make every attempt to deliver the ball without straightening the arm”; and
l Shoaib could have another two weeks’ holiday. With Holding.
“He is a great performer, he puts bums on seats and the game needs players like him,” Cronje says with complete enthusiasm. “Anybody that makes people want to watch the game should be given every encouragement.”
All of which provides for a significant contrast in emotions when the same man delivers one of the more devastating overs in recent one-day international history to remove the entire middle order for exactly no runs. No wonder Shoaib might be on Cronje’s mind.
So now for the final. The best thing that Pakistan could have done for South Africa on Tuesday was to crush them, in very quick time. How could the vanquished possibly say they’ve lost form? They weren’t at the crease long enough to find out! It was genuinely a “blip” on an otherwise dominant landscape.
The record between the two sides over the past four years now reads 14-1 in South Africa’s favour and there is every reason to believe that form will continue.
Lance Klusener needs to be reminded that he is a positive batsman who employs a high backlift and a simple, straight follow- through. At the moment he is “feeling” for the ball and batting tentatively as a result. Pollock may be overdoing the variations of pace at the end of the innings, but otherwise the team is collectively in tremendous form and bubbling with confidence. Maybe Australia is already on their minds, but we’ll leave that until next week, shall we?