How Ravichandran Ashwin played a role in ICC's crackdown on chucking
On 26th February, during India's match against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup, R Ashwin - India's premier spinner was introduced to bowl. He dismissed Mominul Haque with the very first ball of his spell. An ordinary delivery that didn't turn much, but somehow went through what looked like a cross-batted attempt to pick a single on the leg side.
Apart from the rare feat of a stumping from Dinesh Karthik - the batsman, other players and most importantly the viewers were stunned by something that Ashwin did.
The Chennai Super Kings spinner was wearing a full-sleeved jersey as opposed to the half-sleeves we are used to seeing him in. The followers of the game would know that most spinners who have a dodgy element to their action prefer to play in full-sleeves that aid them in hiding any bend above the permissible 15 degrees. This, if you look around, would include the best in the world - the Narines, Ajmals and even Harbhajan Singh on most occasions.
Another thing Ashwin did differently that day was the way he delivered the ball - he had completely changed his action and approach to the crease, so much so that similarity of this action to that of Sunil Narine's was a point of talk in the commentary box as well. He continued to employ the same action for a few more games in the Asia Cup before he went back to his original bowling action.
A few games later, the then 27-year-old had this to say when asked about the change in approach:
“I want to do something different. I want to keep trying something — unless you try you don’t go and venture and find out what can work or not. I’d never bowled in full-sleeves before. So I wanted to see how it would feel. And I just wanted to see if you can get more revs on the ball if you can do a little bit with your elbow, as much as that is. That’s what it was all about. You can get a lot of advantage with these things — so why should I lag behind if someone else is getting a competitive edge?”
Now, when we put together the pieces of the puzzle, it increasingly looks like a cheeky attempt from the Indian cricketer to expose the unfair advantage that others like Narine seemed to be benefiting from. If this is what prompted the administrators to take a serious look into blatant violations of an integral rule of the game, then kudos to him and the activist in Ashwin.
Anyone who has followed cricket in the last few decades will know that there have been 'great bowlers' around who have continued to chuck and made careers out of it. We have wondered how these guys continued to bowl and the cricketing fraternity - the small tightly knit unit that it was - continued to conveniently ignore the few chuckers around. This is probably what has led to several "quality bowlers" and "mystery spinners" sprouting up across the globe in recent times as well.
Chucking is obviously not acceptable and I’d say the ICC has done well to wake up to the problem.