looks like murali is found guilty of throwing the

The chucking controversy

Elliott passes on key information to Sri Lankan board

Wisden Cricinfo staff

April 5, 2004





Muttiah Muralitharan: what will the tests reveal? © Getty Images



The Sri Lankan cricket board already know the results of Muttiah Muralitharan's suspect bowling action assessment, but are yet to publicly release the details. Bruce Elliott, biomechanist at the University of Western Australia, who supervised last week's tests, said on Monday, that he had passed on key data information to the Sri Lankan board.

Elliott said he would complete a written report later this week and send it to the board. "They know what the numbers are," Elliott told Reuters in a telephone interview from Perth. "Just the pure numbers at the elbow. That's the key to the issue, I suppose, but that's where we are with that.

"I don't know what the Sri Lankan board will be doing. I would hope they would tell me that they would let us make it public, or they would make it public. Now really it's up to the Sri Lankan cricket board and the ICC."

Muraliltharan's bowling was assessed after he was reported by match referee Chris Broad during the recent Sri Lanka-Australia Test series. The legality of the `doosra', which spins in the opposite direction to his stock ball, had been called into question.

Elliott's team analysed data relating to six "doosra" deliveries from a testing session in Perth during which Muralitharan wore only reflective markers on his upper body.

The Sri Lankan cricket board is responsible for reviewing and, if necessary, remedying Muralitharan's bowling action with the assistance of an ICC-appointed expert before submitting a report to the ICC within six weeks of Broad's announcement on March 28.

Muralitharan's action has been the source of controversy ever since he was no-balled for throwing by umpire Darrell Hair in a Test match at Melbourne in December 1995.

He was later cleared by the ICC after a University of Western Australia biomechanical analysis, which concluded that the bent-arm action created the "optical illusion" of chucking.

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