Sri Lanka Cricket suspends 128 bowlers

Sri Lanka Cricket’s crackdown on suspect bowling actions has gone to a new level, citing 170 club and school cricketers with defect bowling actions.

In accordance with the International Cricket Council’s own rigorous targeting of illegal bowling actions, Sri Lanka Cricket established a Suspect Bowling Action Review Committee aimed to identify suspect actions from first-class cricket to grass roots level.

Officiating umpires reported any bowler they deemed to have a suspect action, who were then screened by the SLC Coaching Department, video recorded for analysis and given technical feedback to correct the error.

According to the SLC statement: “During the 2014-15 local Cricket season as many as 170 bowlers (spin & fast) were reported for suspect bowling actions from Club & School Cricket.”

Of the 170 reported bowlers, 42 were cleared after tailor-made remedial bowling programs were issued to each bowler.

Periodical assessments of the remedied actions were carried out until an assessor was satisfied the new action was within the legal limit.

While 42 actions were corrected, the remaining 128 that failed to sufficiently remodel their bowling style remain suspended are unlikely to play again as a specialist bowler.

“… it is also believed that having given sufficient time to this date most of these bowlers will find it difficult to bowl with a legal action and also the effectiveness of a delivery in most cases may be compromised when requesting for clearance taking into consideration the remoulded bowling action, (and) this would be a telling factor if one is to be only selected as a bowler in a team he intends playing,” the statement read.

It’s not the first time a global cricket board has banished a large group of bowlers who were deemed to possess suspect actions.

In September last year, the Pakistan Cricket Board reported 29 bowlers with suspect actions, banning 16 repeat offenders from playing domestic cricket.

The PCB’s clamp down followed the suspension of ace spinner Saeed Ajmal, who was found to straighten his elbow up to 43 degrees, significantly above the ICC permitted 15 degrees.

Ajmal has since amended his bowling action, choosing not to participate in Pakistan’s World Cup campaign before returning against Bangladesh in limited-overs cricket in April.