Shoaib action backed by science

Shoaib Akhtar's action has been officially queried by several umpires, most recently on his last international appearance in New Zealand on Feb 28. On that occasion, Pakistan used the official six-week remedial period to send him to Perth, where the University of Western Australia's high-speed cameras recorded the above film at 200 frames per second.

According to Daryl Foster, the UWA lecturer now acting as Pakistan's bowling coach, Shoaib has an anatomical difference to most people. He has tremendous flexibility, so he can hyperextend his arm (or bend it the `wrong' way). That has led umpires to query the action.

In frame three of the sequence, Shoaib's arm begins to hyperextend. By frame seven, the angle has reached its peak of around 40 degrees. Then it begins to straighten again until the release, in frame 11, when the arm is straight.

"Opinions differ, but I think it is a slight advantage for a fast bowler," Foster said. "You get the effect of a longer lever, which gives you that bit of extra time to get all the force together, and a bit of extra whip."

The UWA team argue that Shoaib does not bend his elbow forward in delivery, as 1950s bowlers like the Australian Ian Meckiff so notoriously did, and so should not be considered a `chucker'. Certainly, his hyperextension is involuntary, and he could not avoid it if he tried.

However, a pedant could argue that the wording of Law 24.3 - which states that in a fair delivery "the elbow joint is not straightened partially or completely" after the hand has reached shoulder height - tends to disallow Shoaib's action.