Board comes down hard on chuckers

Wed, Nov 4 05:41 AM

It's the opening day of the Ranji season, and the BCCI has already started cracking the whip on bowlers with suspect actions. The Delhi-Baroda match was an example of this new stance as coach Paras Mhambrey on Tuesday became the first man in danger of being suspended by the Board after fast bowler Salim Veragi was called twice, once from each end by umpires Anil Dandekar and Vishwas Narulkar.

Baroda have four bowlers on the BCCI's watch list, and two of them — Veragi and Rajesh Powar — were picked for the opening match by Mhambrey. His counterpart, Delhi coach Vijay Dahiya had been in trouble earlier this year when Yogesh Nagar was called for chucking during the Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament. The BCCI's new rule states that coaches who "encourage" bowlers with illegal actions could have their NCA coaching licenses suspended for a year. They could be suspended from coaching a Ranji side if one bowler is called twice during the season. Meanwhile, umpires also face similar suspensions for failing to pull up bowlers.

Action to be reviewed

Veragi was first called in his ninth over, forcing Baroda skipper Connor Williams to take him off from the attack. Match rules permit him to bowl in the same innings unless he's called thrice, and the right-arm seamer was recalled for further spells. After he was called a second time, however, Veragi's action will be reviewed by a three-member committee comprising of Javagal Srinath, AV Jayaprakash and S Venkatraghavan.

Mhambrey wants clarity

At the end of the day's play, Mhambrey demanded more clarity in the BCCI's rules on chucking. "Either a bowler is allowed to bowl, or he is not. Once you clear him, saying his degree of bending is less than prescribed, you are leaving things to the umpires' judgment, which may vary from man to man.

"The reason we asked Veragi to bowl again was because we wanted to know if there is a problem with a particular ball or if he is chucking every delivery. Sometimes, a fast bowler chucks while bowling a bouncer or a spinner while attempting a quicker one," he said.

Meanwhile, match referee Sunil Chaturvedi clarified that last year's watch list was only reference material. But some states have already started to omit the known offenders from their squads — Gujarat left out off-spinner Mohnish Parmar and paceman Amit Singh while Baroda didn't pick Sankalp Vohra and Sunit Singh. The trend could pick up as the season continues.

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