Malcolm Conn | October 13, 2007
JASON GILLESPIE believes new laws allowing bowlers to bend their elbow 15 degrees have helped Muttiah Muralidaran and Shoaib Akhtar.
In his new autobiography Dizzy, the former Test paceman also claims it was a mistake to tour Zimbabwe in 2004 because of the country's appalling human rights record.
Gillespie, who remains one of 25 players contracted by Cricket Australia, wrote that he means no malice towards Murali or Shoaib "but bowling actions are a fact of life".
"They're tough to judge but you almost feel that the ICC change the rules to keep specific players in the game," Gillespie said.
"Whether we like it or not, there's a hell of a lot of politics in sports such as cricket, and it's one of those issues that won't go away."
Sri Lanka, which begins a two-Test tour of Australia in 11 days, has always been hyper-sensitive about any criticism of Murali's action.
Murali has 700 Test wickets and is expected to break Shane Warne's world record of 708 in Australia this summer.
Sri Lanka's cricket community is often outraged and the administration was incensed when Adam Gilchrist agreed Murali had a dodgy action while speaking at a Carlton Football Club lunch five years ago.
Sri Lanka demanded action against Gilchrist and threatened to withdraw from a tour. CA caved in and Gilchrist received a six-match suspended ban for speaking his mind.
The ICC has since changed the laws relating to bowlers throwing. Bowlers can now have up to a 15-degree bend in their elbow, the angle at which a bend becomes obvious to the naked eye, according to biomechanical experts.
If umpires have any concerns they no longer call bowlers for throwing, as umpire Darrell Hair did with Murali on Boxing Day 1995 in Melbourne.
Instead players are reported by umpires and examined by technology to determine whether their action is legal. Murali has been consistently cleared by this analysis, however bad his action may look at times.
Gillespie, 32, claimed that Cricket Australia goes through contracted players' books "with a fine tooth comb".
"You have to be careful and you don't want to burn anyone. You don't want to hurt anyone's feelings," he said yesterday.
"The reason I mentioned Muralidaran is because his action has been mentioned so many times by so many different people that I thought if you're going to talk about bowling actions he has to be mentioned."
Despite controversy surrounding their actions, Gillespie said Murali and Shoaib were good for the game.
"Murali is a great person to have in cricket. He causes a bit of a stir. He gets people talking about the game, which is what we want, but we're all in the business of cricket.
"We want the players who people want to see playing all the time. I see Murali playing cricket as a good thing. It keeps people interested and it keeps cricket on the main pages of the newspapers.
"I extend that to Shoaib as well. I've heard him say in the past that it's a batsman's game and fast bowlers are being driven out of the game. I couldn't agree with him more.
"There's nothing better to see a fast bowler steaming in off a big, long run-up and wreaking havoc. It's great TV and great viewing for the paying public.
"Players want to play against the best.
"You don't want to take these people out of the game. It takes away from the spectacle."
Gillespie also claims the human rights situation in Zimbabwe is so bad he should not have toured there with the Australians in 2004 and would not go again if selected.
That decision was taken out of the hands of individual players this year when the Australian Government banned a proposed one-day tour to Zimbabwe in August, much to the relief of all concerned.
Gillespie believes, if there had not been a government ban, a number of senior players would have withdrawn from the tour anyway.
"I know all countries have issues but Zimbabwe has got to a point where human rights don't even count in that country anymore," he said.
Gillespie said he would follow the stand taken by Stuart MacGill in 2004.
"Stuart made himself unavailable for the 2004 tour and if I was put in that situation again, with the state that Zimbabwe was in, I probably wouldn't go."
