This past week two Pakistan cricketers, both ostracised from the game but for different reasons, were informed by the International Cricket Council that they would be allowed to return to the game. One at international level with immediate effect , the other, also immediate, to lower-level domestic cricket prior to the completion of a finite ban.
Saeed Ajmal, a devastating spin bowler, was deemed to have an action that was so far beyond the permitted 15-degree parameters of flex in his bowling arm as almost to defy belief. He underwent stringent biometric testing on 24 January. His action, necessarily remodelled, has been cleared as legal. In theory, he can now pick up where he left off and remains, despite being out of action for almost six months, the top-ranked bowler in one-day cricket.
The other player is the pace bowler Mohammad Amir, the finest young bowler in the world in 2010, who while still a teenager had received a five-year ban from all cricket for his part in a conspiracy that involved deliberately bowling no-balls in a Test match at Lord’s that year. Unlike the pair sentenced with him – Salman Butt, then the Pakistan captain, and Mohammad Asif – he has been genuinely remorseful and fully cooperative with the ICC anti-corruption unit. His ban is due to finish at the end of September.
Of the two it is Amir who is most likely to make any future impact on the international game. His offence, and the subsequent prison sentence and ban, have taken away some of what were potentially the most exciting times that he will experience. By now, but for his transgression, he would be taking his place in this World Cup as one of the leading cricketers in the world.
In theory, it was always going to be possible for him to resume international cricket against England in the United Arab Emirates next autumn. But the reality is that as far as his international career is concerned, the five-year ban was effectively longer given how much time would be required to bring his bowling and fitness back up to the levels required once the term was up. In allowing him what is a form of parole, the ICC is not just showing some compassion towards a naive young man with zero chance of recidivism, but common sense as well.
There is even a chance that his conviction could be considered unsafe following the Crown Prosecution Service’s investigation into the stings of the “Fake Sheik” – the undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood – given that his specific offence only occurred with the encouragement and at the instigation of Mahmood. Even so, Amir seems unlikely to find his passage back into the side a smooth one. His ICC pardon has received a mixed reception in Pakistan, and there seems to be a move to challenge it in the courts there.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan captain, Misbah-ul-Haq, appears ambivalent at best. It has also been pointed out that there will be precious little domestic cricket to be played in Pakistan between now and September. So maybe the prospect of England facing him in September is not quite so clear cut.
Nor are the chances of Ajmal being there straightforward. There was always speculation that, should his action be cleared, he would be slotted back into the Pakistan side, possibly even in time for the World Cup should the opportunity arise. That did indeed happen, with the injured all-rounder Mohammad Hafeez requiring a replacement. Instead of Ajmal, however, Pakistan opted for an opening batsman, Nasir Jamshed.
Ajmal himself has dressed this up as his decision, saying that he is not ready to return but threatening, eventually, to do so better than ever. “I would have featured if I wanted to play,” he is quoted as saying, “but I opted not to as I did not want to be a burden.”
Ajmal’s remarkable success came from his nous as a bowler, but it was predicated on an illegal bowling action. It allowed him to spin the ball more prodigiously than otherwise he might and, most significantly, it allowed him to bowl his doosra, the disguised offspinner that actually spins away from the right hander. With a new action, he will be less efficient in the first discipline and totally unable to reproduce the second. In short, he will be a bowler deprived of his armoury and, as such, back in the ranks of spinners: pretty good, no doubt, but not devastating.
Amir still has youth on his side and has the opportunity to achieve greatness. For his part, Ajmal says he has “two new deliveries”. They would be the ones with the straight arm then and they won’t be half as troublesome.
AWESOME!!!!!!
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