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From the Press box by Sa'adi Thawfeeq

Chucking raised its ugly head again when West Indies fast bowler Jermaine Lawson was reported by the umpires of possessing a suspected action in the fourth and final Test at St. John's, Antigua. The umpires thought there was something unusual about his actions after he had ripped through the Aussies batting taking seven for 78. With Sri Lanka now in Calypso land, the focus of attention is on Lawson who unfortunately has been sidelined by a back injury for the one-day international series starting Saturday.

The list of bowlers who have been reported with suspect actions in the recent past is becoming endless. Of the current crop of players, Lawson apart, bowlers who had at sometime or another come under the microscope of suspicion over their bowling actions are Australia's Brett Lee, England's James Kirtley, New Zealand's Kyle Mills, India's Harbhajan Singh and Rajesh Chauhan, Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar and Shabbir Ahmed, Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan, Kumar Dharmasena, Suresh Perera and Ruchira Perera, Zimbabwe's Grant Flower and Henry Olonga. South Africa and Test minnow's Bangladesh are the only nations without a suspect bowler in modern day cricket.

With so much of modern technology available it is surprising that bowlers with questionable actions have got away scot free to brazenly ply their trades on the international circuit with the controlling body for the sport the International Cricket Council (ICC) more or less turning a blind eye.

There is a system put in place by the ICC where a bowler with a suspect action will be first reported and allowed to continue playing, if remedial action doesn't prove right and he is reported again, he will have to spend a year out of the game rectifying his action with the help of a panel of experts from the ICC. However in this present day era, umpires have been reluctant to enforce Law - which entitles him to call a bowler for throwing if in his opinion the ball was delivered illegally.

Cricket today with television playing a major role is big money and the ICC would not want to spoil the party by trying to act as Big Daddy.

The root cause of all this starts from the school stage when the coach does not make an effort to correct a suspect action as long as the bowler is taking wickets and winning matches for him. This way the coach ensures his position in the side regardless of the immense damage that he is causing not only to the bowler but also to the country at large.

The umpires who officiate at this level are also partly responsible for not calling such a bowler and nipping it in the bud, for fear probably of falling out of favour as a trouble-maker and not getting the assignments quite often as they should get.

Eventually what happens is that the bowler progresses through to the club and then to the international stage with his suspect action, which he thinks, is right? Here he comes under the scrutiny of the television cameras, which ultimately exposes him.

Even then the coaches at national level hardly do anything because their avenue of survival is the success of the cricketers on the field.

Australian umpire Darrel Hair learnt a bitter lesson when he called Muralitharan for throwing in 1995 and the rumpus raised by Sri Lanka saw Hair, regarded as the best in the business in Australia, falling out of favour when the ICC initially picked the elite panel of eight umpires.

Hair's place went to Daryl Harper who was not in the same league. Hair however was included in the elite panel when the ICC decided to expand it with the growing number of matches played around the world. But only after he had rather reluctantly put on his best behaviour when confronted with Muralitharan again.

The way things are there doesn't seem to be a way this chucking menace will be eradicated. As someone said the other day, 'chucking is also an art'. Unless stern action is enforced to eradicate this menace once and for all, the bowlers with suspect actions will rule the roost setting up new bowling records.

There are only a few who have the guts to stand up and shout and take a stand on this issue. But their voices are stifled because the show must go on.

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