I dont say that today will provide the answers, but I do think that we manage to
unravel some of the mystery.
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sincerity to Mark Nicholas as he stares into the camera. He looks almost
childlike in appearance: suit slightly oversized, top button done up and tie
fastened yet not dovetailing. This isnt the Mark Nicholas who prowls the
pristine greens of Australias outfields with the manner of one on top of the
food chain. Here he is sitting, shoulders flexed in. Theres uncertainty in the
air and he can do little to hide it. The footage rolls.Its July 5, 2004, and
Lords is preparing for an England-West Indies ODI. While most of the ground is a
hub of noise, as cables are unreeled, fastened and taped, the Nursery Ground is
still. Nicholas is in dark trousers and a cream shirt, with sleeves rolled up.
Standing next to him, Muttiah Muralitharan is wearing a sleeveless Sri Lanka
T-shirt.In conversation Nicholas is clear and concise. Murali stutters, his
English sentences crossing a few bumps as they make their way from a mind
working in Tamil. Murali is there to prove his worth: to Nicholas, to those
operating the cameras, to bystanders who have blagged themselves onto this side
of the fence, to those in the production vehicle on site, and in two weeks time,
when the footage is to be broadcast during the lunch interval of the
England-West Indies Test at Lords, to millions watching. He is here to prove
that his 527 Test wickets so far have been achieved fair and square. That,
despite what many believe, he is no chucker.With slow, measured gestures, he
shows Nicholas what his arm and wrist go through when bowling the offspinner and
the doosra. A brace is brought out and put on Murali but it soon comes off as he
begins a control spell of two offbreaks, one topspinner and two doosras. He then
puts the brace back on, returns to the top of his mark and bowls the same set.
Just after his second offspinner - his first was wayward - Nicholas stops him: I
am now getting the sense of an illusion. Nicholas wants another look, only this
time he wants to take the run-up out of it because of the differences in the
load-up, with and without the brace. As before, Murali bowls the offspinner and
doosra, and they turn as expected.There is no way the elbow can move here, says
Nicholas, emphasising his point by banging down on the pit of Muralis elbow. I
put my hand on my heart and I say that.We are returned to the studio, only to be
sent back to the footage. This time, only Nicholas stands on the Nursery Ground,
with a blue prototype of the brace used by Murali, who has left Lords. Like a
sceptical member of the audience who has been serenaded by a magician, Nicholas
flicks through the deck of cards. He tries to bowl an offbreak with the brace
on. It barely lands on the square. The inability to use his elbow, he says,
restricts the ability to bowl the delivery with an orthodox action.After a
commercial break, former Middlesex medium-pacer and TV analyst Simon Hughes
breaks down the slow-motion footage, looking at how much Muralis arm straightens
both with and without the brace. Hughes estimates, with the aid of crude tools,
that there is more than five degrees of straightening with both the offspinner
and the doosra. At the time, that was the spin bowlers lot (a medium-pacer was
allowed 7.5 degrees straightening and a fast bowler ten). By the letter of the
law, Hughes suggests, Murali was chucking.Murali would not have been at the
Nursery Ground had his action not been called into question yet again. Three
months earlier, when Sri Lanka lost a Test series at home to Australia 3-0, his
big trick - a delivery that turned from leg to off - had come under scrutiny. He
had bagged 28 wickets in the series to take him to 513, six behind Courtney
Walsh, then Test crickets leading wicket-taker. But match referee Chris Broad
could not shake the feeling that Muralis doosra was being delivered with an
action that is not in accordance with the laws of the game. Broads report to the
ICC was measured and frank: the doosra - and only the doosra, he was keen to
stress - needed to be investigated.Murali found out about the report at the end
of the final day of the series, in Colombo - March 28. By March 31, he had
touched down in Perth, and the day after, he was at the University of Western
Australias School of Human Movement with perhaps the only Australian he truly
trusted at the time - Daryl Foster.The pair had first crossed paths in 1995.
Foster, coach of Kent, needed an overseas player for the season, with Carl
Hooper unavailable. Aravinda de Silva was brought in and with him came a slight,
bedraggled yet smiley young offspinner who was preparing for a stint of league
cricket in Leicestershire. Many of the Kent players assumed he was just there to
carry de Silvas bags. He didnt know how to set a field, he didnt know how to
work out a batsman, and he could barely speak English. But he could bowl. Thats
all he would do: bowl at players in the nets, day after day, before heading to
the Midlands.Murali, as many attest, cannot do subtlety. He is not so much an
open book as a talking clock: an utterance a moment to set your watch by. That
was startlingly evident even when he returned to Kent in 2003, with more than a
decade of international cricket behind him. He would swear by the booming
offspinner - the ball he reckoned could make a mockery of the worlds best. By
then he had developed the doosra. But when county batsmen started playing him
with ease, he panicked. In his head, big turn equalled big reward. And yet here
were batsmen he should have been getting out in his sleep, picking each
delivery. It was then that Kent opener David Fulton informed him that, from a
batsmans point of view, when someone famed for big turn pitches the ball a yard
outside a right-handers off stump, with a change-up that lands as far away as
leg stump, its fairly obvious what is coming. And so the seeds were sown:
turning the ball just enough, either way, was better than turning it a lot from
off to leg and vice versa.Foster gravitated to Murali, mesmerised by his action.
The pair kept in touch, and when Darrell Hair no-balled Murali at the Boxing Day
Test in 1995, Foster, coaching Western Australia, got him over to UWA to have
him tested. He passed. Murali returned when he was no-balled by Ross Emerson in
1999. He passed again.Murali put himself forward for testing three further
times. Once, he made the journey to Perth simply because he had heard a rumour
that an unnamed match referee wanted to string him up for his quicker delivery.
When the doosra was called into question by Broad in 2004, Murali was
approaching the end of his tether.This time, though, tests showed that his
action caused a 14-degree flex, almost three times the limit for a spinner. The
next fortnight was spent labouring in suburban nets with Foster, who tweaked his
action by a small amount, enough to get the flex down to 10.2 degrees. It was at
this point - just as Murali was starting to lose his nerve - that a plan began
hatching back in Sri Lanka.Kushil Gunasekera met Murali in 2000, when Sri Lanka
hosted the Under-19 World Cup. The pair became friends, and soon after, Murali
asked Gunasekera to be his manager. It was a huge deal at the time: not only
because it was the first time a Sri Lankan cricketer was being managed, but also
because it was a partnership between a Tamil and a Sinhala.Gunasekera is cut
from the same moral cloth as Murali. Both are serene optimists whose desire to
see the good in people is seemingly at odds with their harsh real-world
experiences. Gunasekera is more pragmatic but has often found himself in
situations where Murali would consult him when his mind had already been made
up. The best example of this was when Murali came to Gunasekera to tell him that
he was going to retire after the first Test of the three-match series against
India in 2010. Murali was on 792 wickets and many were imploring him to play the
full series to give himself the best chance of reaching 800. Gunasekera knew
trying to convince him otherwise was futile. Sri Lanka won the opening match, in
Galle, and Murali dismissed Pragyan Ojha - for his eighth wicket - with his
final delivery in Tests.Now in 2004 with Murali in Perth, there was no one to
back up Gunasekera. Despite countless internal meetings, the Sri Lankan board
was undecided on a course of action - keen to pursue all avenues to uphold
Muralis dignity. Meanwhile, the ICC dragged its heels, trying to comprehend the
limits of its own rules.This was when former cricketer turned cricket writer
Mahinda Wijesinghe had an idea. A keen historian, Wijesinghe recalled the time
when former England captain CB Fry had his action called into question in the
late 19th century. Accused of chucking, Fry bowled with a splint on his elbow,
preventing it from bending in delivery, to prove he was a legitimate bowler.
Wijesinghe teamed up with an Indian orthopaedic surgeon based in Sri Lanka - Dr
Mandeep Dhillon - and floated the idea of manufacturing a brace. Gunasekera
presented the idea to Murali, who agreed, and upon returning from Perth, worked
with the others to build the ideal brace.Once a working sample was operational -
the first model was based on an ankle brace that fitted onto the elbow - Murali
had to get used to the additional weight. Wijesinghe used his contacts to book
the indoor nets at the Nondescripts Cricket Club in Colombo to ensure there were
no prying eyes, though they eventually informed the Sri Lankan board of what
they were trying. The first taping of Murali with a brace on took place at the
indoor nets, with Mohan de Silva - the board president at the time - looking
on.While generally happy with the brace, Murali felt it was too clunky. So Dr
Dhillon created a plaster cast of Muralis right arm and reinforced it with steel
rods, which were held together by heat-moulded plastic. After a few more
run-throughs, all parties were satisfied with the brace. Now it was time to let
everyone in on the experiment. And it was agreed that an attempt such as this
needed a neutral adjudicator to add credence. They knew Sri Lanka as a venue
would be counterproductive. Australia was a no go because Murali had opted out
of a tour there when Prime Minister John Howard labelled him a chucker. That
left England.Muralis doosra was reported in March 2004. Eight months later the
ICC changed the flex limit to 15 degrees, no matter the pace of delivery. To
this day, the misconception is that the rule was brought in to accommodate
Murali, whose doosra had been found to be 14 degrees (this despite it being
corrected to 10.2 a matter of weeks later). It could not be further from the
truth.Between 2000 and 2002, Marc Portus, a biomechanics expert for Cricket
Australia based at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra,
conducted tests on 21 elite fast bowlers from five countries, in match
conditions. He found that 34 deliveries from these bowlers showed straightening
of the elbow between three and 22 degrees. Fourteen of those were above ten
degrees, with five exceeding 15. In fact, only a handful of bowlers - pace or
otherwise - during this period of testing were found to have no elbow extension
(or straightening) whatsoever: these were predominantly legspinners, from the
best in the world to part-timer Ramnaresh Sarwan.In October 2004, Portus and
fellow biomechanists Bruce Elliot and Paul Hurrion made separate and independent
presentations to an ICC subcommittee brought together to review the matter of
illegal bowling actions. Sitting on the committee were Aravinda de Silva, Tim
May, Michael Holding, Tony Lewis and Angus Fraser. Portus showed footage from
the AIS study, of all current international bowlers at the time, along with the
corresponding 3D biomechanics numbers that his team had calculated in the study.
The other presentations involved videos of both retired and active bowlers.There
were some great bowlers on the footage, recalls Fraser, now the managing
director of Middlesex Cricket and an England selector. Bowlers with actions you
assumed were as pure as can be. I mean, all-time fast bowlers were talking about
here.While the measurements on the footage were not as precise as if they had
been tested in a lab, there were certain balls which were over 15 degrees. Not
just bouncers but inswingers. It made sense: as a right-arm bowler, your arm has
to come in and then out as you bowl, because youre trying to push the ball
across, say, a left-hander. It requires the action to be exaggerated and pushed
through to affect the movement across the body.The findings in Portus initial
report were actually presented to the ICC in March 2002 - a good two years
before Muralis doosra was reported - but it was only in September 2003 that Dave
Richardson, in his role as ICC general manager, recommended to the ICC to have
15 degrees as the universal tolerance level. No change was forthcoming, but
unbeknownst to Richardson, important bits of the study were leaked to key
players in Muralis camp. One of those was a London-based lawyer, Glucka
Wijesuriya.Wiji, as he is known in cricket circles, has known Murali since 1991.
When Murali called in March 2004 to ask for his professional help, Wiji obliged
and took it upon himself to write letters to the ICC, accusing them of stalling
and hanging an honest man out to dry. Rather than approach SLC directly, Wiji
called on Gunasekera - efficient and well respected by the board, having
previously been honorary secretary - to take these documents to SLC and get them
sent to the ICC on official letterheads. The letters were not just legal threats
- they also contained nods to Portus study that included high-profile names who
had fallen foul of testing.If Gunasekera was the optimist, Wiji was the realist:
the well-to-do scrapper with an over-sensitive bullshit sensor. He would
regularly fight Muralis corner in cricket club bars across the country.
Gunasekera knew this and, taking into account Wijis array of high-profile
contacts, gave him the chance to fight the battle in the open.Wiji called on
Jeff Foulser, a former club team-mate who was now the chief executive and later
chairman of Sunset and Vine - the production company behind Channel 4s cricket
coverage. Wiji stressed he wanted the demonstration to happen at Lords. Foulser
agreed wholeheartedly. Nicholas loved the idea too, and was keen to explore the
issue. However, he was wary of doing so on anothers terms. He wanted to ensure
all the facts were presented and that the viewers could draw their own
conclusions from the on-screen evidence. He did not want to pander to Murali -
he wanted a balanced product. In the end, Foulser called a meeting with both
Nicholas and Wiji to set out the terms of the piece.On the eve of the big day,
Wijis reservations about the experiment began to surface for the first time. The
next morning, he was not happy with the pitch prepared on the Nursery Ground. He
feared its slow, low nature might lead some to believe that Murali was holding
something back, that he was not coming through his action as he normally would.
Murali, however, was calm. He had practised for countless hours with the cast.
He knew he could bowl his offspinner. He knew he could land the topspinner. He
knew he could get enough on the doosra. But most of all, he knew he had nothing
to hide. It was not about proving his legitimacy beyond reasonable doubt - it
was about eliminating doubt altogether. In essence, there was a naivety about
this crusade. Protest too much? He felt he couldnt protest enough.Objectively,
the Lords demonstration was a unique moment. In what other scenario, in which
other sport, would a player of Muralis standing wilfully expose himself to such
devastating scrutiny? In the last decade baseballers suspended for using
performance-enhancing drugs have continued playing, with their records intact;
track athletes and tennis stars have overshot the limits to gain an edge. Most
of these athletes have tried to duck the spotlight. The few who have owned up
have done so to benefit from a lesser punishment. Murali, though, wanted as much
scrutiny on him as possible, even when he knew he could get burned.Deep down, he
knew this event would do little to convince the floating voters. And it is worth
remembering that Murali had some high-profile backers - Steve Waugh had
described Murali as the Don Bradman of bowlers a few months earlier. But for
Murali, those were not the words of Steve Waugh, legendary Australian captain.
Those were the words of one person. The wickets and Test wins, the accolades and
honours, the rankings and rewards - they all meant nothing without acceptance.At
the end of 2004, recovering from a shoulder injury, Murali looked to negotiate a
contract with a county side to play the first part of the 2005 summer. He was
shown around various grounds and dined in a variety of pavilions. Between the
walking tours and the lunches, the subject of Muralis action inevitably came up.
Chairmen and captains, while keen to utilise his talents, were wary of upsetting
loyal members by bringing aboard a controversial figure, as one former county
skipper put it.By now, Murali had a patter: he would bring up the birth defects,
helicopter wrists and a range of stats and titbits he had picked up from years
of volunteering his body in the cause of investigatory biomechanics. A few
times, in packed dining rooms, he would stand up, take his shirt off and run
through his action in slow motion: the natural bend in the elbow, the rotation
of the shoulder, the dexterity of the wrist. On one occasion, he returned to his
seat and continued with the meal, forgetting to put his shirt back on. In the
end, Lancashire, for whom he had taken 116 wickets in 14 matches in the 1999 and
2001 seasons, re-signed him.Michael Atherton, who had played with Murali at
Lancashire in those earlier years, did not need the sales pitch. With Murali, I
simply remember thinking he was a bugger to play against, says Atherton. He was
probably the most popular overseas player we had, along with Wasim [Akram]. We
really ought to have won the Championship with him in the team. But nobody at
Lancs was worried about him coming to us: we welcomed him with open arms and
were happy to have him. I cant remember any problems with membership, either.The
desire to hammer out the doubt in others was evident to Atherton, too: He was
obviously hurt by what happened with the umpires in Australia and felt the need
to prove himself all the time. That came through very clearly when I was with
him.Even as recently as 2014, Murali was trying to persuade a group of English
journalists that his method was above board. Lawrence Booth, editor of Wisden
and cricket correspondent for the Daily Mail, was one who did not need
convincing. Still, he was struck by how, even after retirement, Murali had
scores to settle.There was a sincerity to it all, says Booth. One of the things
I noticed through all of it was how straight-talking he was. Murali got Booth to
push down on his palm, while his elbow was on a table, to try and straighten his
arm. Of course, I couldnt do it.During the interview with Booth, Murali relayed
the following: If there are people saying things against you, there is no point
in upsetting yourself. I cant prove to 100% or 75% of the people. Its
impossible. Yet, as Booth noted in his piece, here Murali was, trying to state
his case yet again a good six months after playing his last game of competitive
cricket.The one thing I think people dont realise, says Muralis friend and
long-time team-mate Russel Arnold, is that he fought this battle internally. In
the dressing room, there was no change. He was still a chirpy nuisance!For many
like Arnold, Murali remained the joker: yapping away for hours, occasionally
taking a break to make a serious point that was soon to be washed away by
another punchline and more self-congratulatory chuckles. He was handling it his
way and his team-mates respected that. So too his decision to bowl with a brace.
For many of his team-mates, this was no doomed pursuit. There was no folly to
Muralis overexposure, they felt. Sure, he had 527 Test wickets until then, but
this was not about preserving a legend.You dont understand, says Arnold.
Everywhere he went, there were murmurs. And he wanted to put all that to rest.
You can talk about degrees all you like: of flex, straightening and whatever.
People needed to see, with their own eyes, what he was actually doing.This was
about transparency.On the way into Lords that morning, Wiji turned to Murali and
said: The most important thing in life is to make sure your contemporaries and
the people you play cricket with respect you and accept you. Murali agreed.Wiji
had invited his friend and international umpire Barry Dudleston to watch
proceedings. Once the brace spell had been bowled - with both standing behind
the bowlers arm - Wiji asked Dudleston what he thought. You know, said
Dudleston, Ive never eaten humble pie before.That evening Wiji, accompanied by
Murali and Dudleston, met Dave Richardson at the ICCs London offices. Buoyed by
Muralis demonstration, Wiji went after Richardson. He laid into him for behaving
bloody awfully and began reciting bits of the 2002 study: about the
ridiculousness of the previous standard, the fact that bowlers currently ranked
in the top ten of the ICC rankings were found to exceed the ten-degree limit,
and that by sitting on this paper for so long he was playing games with a mans
life. For Wiji, six months of toil - of letters back and forth, of orchestrating
the events of that day, and fighting for a friend - had taken its toll. Wiji was
so angry, security was alerted - though they didnt have to intervene, and
eventually Murali, Wiji and Dudleston left. If I could change one thing, Id have
been more aggressive, laughs Wiji. But Murali didnt want me to be. He acted as
the mediator in that situation. Then I got the impression Richardson was
patronising him and I blew up again. Wiji had calmed down by the time he reached
the airport to drop Murali off. Exhausted, they bid each other farewell and went
their separate ways.The experiment itself had limited success. Some were
satisfied that Murali could bowl more or less identical deliveries with his
elbow locked into position. As many biomechanical experts have documented after
working with Murali or analysing footage, the movement of his shoulder, his
supple wrist and a genetic deformity saw his elbow flexed to 38 degrees in its
normal state. His elbows carry angle - the bend that helps the arms to swing
without hitting the hips while walking - was between 17 and 18 degrees (as
opposed to the more common five to 15 degrees), and created an illusion of
chucking.I wouldnt say we have solved the mystery, wrote Mark Nicholas in the
Telegraph. But the example of the brace shows he gains little or no advantage
beyond other bowlers who also have degrees of flexion. Murali has a case and he
should be heard. Others saw this as a misfiring PR stunt that merely clouded the
issue further. Me thinks he doth protest too much, signed off Michael Parkinson,
also in the Telegraph.The experiment had limited coverage in the Australian
press. Murali tried to redress that by replicating a similar test at the
Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, facilitated by ESPN-Star. Ravi Shastri acted as
moderator, with Michael Slater batting against Murali, who bowled with and
without the cast. Slater has subsequently gone on the record to back the
legitimacy of Muralis action. But one mans opinion can only change so
much.Murali was satisfied with how the Lords recording went - happy to have been
able to respond to the allegations in such a manner. Twelve years and 273 Test
victims later, it remains as contentious a topic as ever. Murali, though, has no
regrets. Nor does Wiji.Gunasekera, however, cannot shake the dismay. Even after
doing all this, certain sections dont believe any of it, he says. He tried to do
everything to prove himself and there are some who still say they dont regard
him as a legal bowler. Even after 800 wickets.He pauses for a moment, before one
last sigh. Eight hundred. What else can you do?
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Philadelphia on Friday. The Nets said they would issue another update next week
after consultation with their doctors. The Southeastern Conference is down to
one playoff contender.Defending national champion and top-ranked Alabama is a
lock for its third straight berth if the Crimson Tide can beat No. 15 Florida in
the SEC championship game Saturday in Atlanta, and may not even need to
win.`Bama much prefers the first scenario.Winning the SEC championship is
something thats really important to us and we think a very, very significant
accomplishment, Alabama coach Nick Saban said Sunday. Thats kind of one of the
goals that we have. Whatever comes beyond that, comes beyond that but our focus
needs to be on this game.The Gators (8-3) were playoff longshots even before
Saturday nights 31-13 loss to rival Florida State but could have made a case
with two huge closing wins. They emerged from a topsy-turvy SEC East to earn a
title game rematch.I gave them until 3:45 in the morning, which is when we
unloaded the bus, to think about it and then erase it and learn from it, said
Floridas Jim McElwain, the first coach to lead a team to SEC championship games
in each of his first two seasons.He wanted them to start preparation realizing
that theres a whole bunch of people that wish they were playing on this
championship weekend.Nobodys surprised that the Tide (12-0), the last unbeaten
team from a Power 5 conference, is back in the Georgia Dome. `Bama players
werent particularly interested in talking about their playoff prospects after
Saturdays 30-12 win over rival Auburn.We just worry about the next game,
linebacker Ryan Anderson said. Teams that start worrying about the Final Four
and all that, they get beat.The SEC championship winner has played for a
national title or made the playoffs in eight straight seasons.Here are some
story lines to waatch in the SEC championship game:FAMILIAR FOES: The winner
will take the lead in this frequent SEC championship matchup.
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title.Its two storied programs and two programs that year in and year out expect
to be in Atlanta, McElwain, a former Tide offensive coordinator, said.TOUGH
DEFENSES: The two best defenses in the league will take on offenses that have
been less consistent. The Tide leads the nation in run defense, scoring defense
and total defense The Gators rank third in pass efficiency defense and fifth in
both points and yards allowed.The Tide hasnt allowed a touchdown in the last 267
minutes, 54 seconds of game time, dating back to the third quarter of the Texas
A&M game on Oct. 22.OFFENSIVE ISSUES: Alabamas offense has been prone to
stopping itself at times, including two Jalen Hurts interceptions in the first
half against Auburn. The Tide also fumbled four times in the half but recovered
all of them. Those kinds of things could come back to haunt them in their bid
for titles. Florida has perhaps more serious offensive concerns after gaining
just 207 yards against FSU, including 58 on the ground.SHERIT OUT: McElwain said
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