NEW DELHI, Feb 11: Off-spinner Saeed Ajmal’s controversial bowling action has sparked off a heated debate in Asian cricket with some Indian greats calling him a “chucker” while experts in Pakistan have backed him to the hilt.

While former spinners like Bishan Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna and Maninder Singh have questioned the legality of Saeed’s action, Pakistani players like Abdul Qadir and Saqlain Mushtaq and senior Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh have been supportive of the 34-year-old who bamboozled English batsmen in a three-match Test series taking 24 wickets.

Bedi feels that it is the ICC which has created problems by allowing the 15-degree concession to the bowlers. “How can you continue with this nonsense? One should put an end to this farce. It’s ICC’s prerogative to react. Saeed Ajmal’s is case of ‘chucking’ I feel. If you look at the way he is bowling, he doesn’t need a run-up to bowl. He can stand and simply throw the ball just like you play darts,” Bedi said.

“You have allowed someone like Muttiah Muralitharan and that’s where the problem started. Can anyone with naked eye be able to conclude whether the arm is bending at less or more than 15 degrees?”

Bedi’s former colleague Prasanna too blamed it on the ICC and said the governing body should take note. “Saeed’s action is certainly a problem but then the ICC has allowed him to bowl so it is ‘fair’ in that sense. As far as we know, bending the elbow more than 15 degrees is not permissible in the ICC rules. But this fellow himself said that he has been allowed a 23-degree bend,” Prasanna said.

The ICC had tested Saeed’s action in 2009 and it was cleared by the human movement experts at the University of Western Australia. It was found that Saeed bowls with a bend of 23.5 degrees before releasing the ball and then flexes it to around 15.5 degrees which means the actual “jerk” is around eight degrees — within the limits of 15 degrees set by the ICC.

Surprisingly, Saeed got some support from his Indian counterpart Harbhajan Singh. “From whatever little I have seen of Saeed, he is a brilliant bowler and he has an amazing skill set. It is very difficult to pick his doosra and that makes him a lethal bowler. Also, he bowls a straighter one well and his off break is also effective,” he said.

Pakistan’s top-rated spin bowlers, meanwhile, jumped to his defence and rubbished doubts over Saeed’s action.

“I don’t know what this fuss is all over his bowling action. Cricket technology has today evolved so much if he arm bends beyond the ICC tolerance level of 15 degrees I don’t think he would be allowed to play cricket,” Qadir one of Pakistan’s top leg-spin exponents said.

Qadir said that if one watches an off-spinner bowling on television there might be an illusion that the bowler is bending his arm particularly if has mastered the doosra delivery. “But the factual position is that I don’t think Saeed would have been playing for so long without having been reported by match officials if his action was suspect,” he said.

“Let us not forget ICC uses the latest biomechanics technology and experts to clear bowlers. Saeed was cleared to play international cricket since 2009 without any issues so what is all the fuss about. Let him enjoy his success. England should not be sore losers.”

However, former Indian spinner Maninder Singh disagrees. “He (Saeed) is an outright chucker and should not be allowed to take the field,” he said. “He has been allowed by the ICC to bend his arm upto 23.5 degrees, but I am sure that he is bending his arm more than 30 degrees and with that action he can not only bowl a ‘teesra’ but he can also produce a ‘chautha’,” he said.

“The ICC has never been serious about this chucking non-sense. Did they ever tried to form a committee, comprising retired umpires like Dickie Bird, to tell them what is right and what is wrong. They have been just giving away special allowances, which is utter non-sense,” he added.

Former left-arm spinner and ex-chief selector, Iqbal Qasim said while he knew that Saeed did have a slight bend in his arm due to a childhood accident but when he bowled it did not straighten more than about eight degrees.

“People have this belief that when Saeed bowls his doosra that is when he might be breaking the 15 degrees tolerance level of the ICC but if you watch closely his off-break and quicker ball actually lead to this illusion that he straightens his arm more by a friction than when he bowls the doosra,” he explained.

Former off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq said given Saeed’s success in recent months, he was expecting such problems for him. “At times there was also talk about my action but it was totally fair. I think same is the case with Saeed. He should just put all this talk behind his mind and focus on taking wickets. I don’t see anything wrong with his action,” he said. “It is an art to bowl the doosra with an off-spinner’s action and Saeed has mastered that. Unfortunately people who don’t understand this art are after him and his action.”—Agencies