Bangladesh Cricket Board to review over a dozen suspect actions

The BCB’s new bowling action review committee has been tasked with assessing the suspected bowling actions of over a dozen bowlers on the basis of reports during the Dhaka Premier League. The committee was formed last Sunday in the wake of BCB President Nazmul Hasan’s promise to reform the standards of domestic cricket by weeding out illegal bowling actions.

Jalal Yunus, head of the committee said on Saturday : “We have a meeting on Tuesday to decide the committee’s modus operandi. At least 13 to 14 bowlers have been reported during this Dhaka Premier League. We will start working with them after Eid. We will assess their bowling actions in the nets.

“Omar Khaled was a former spinner and Dipu Roy Chowdhury and Golam Faruk are former pace bowlers who will work according to their areas. If we find deviation in their bowling through the naked eye and cameras, we will have to rectify them.

“Afterwards, if we see the correction is consistent, they can play in next year’s league. If they are reported again, they will be banned for a year. We will work with bowlers in the NCL, BCL, BPL, the Dhaka Premier League, Dhaka First Division and Second Division and age-group.”

The formation of the committee was triggered after suspensions of Taskin Ahmed and Arafat Sunny in March and was further propelled by the umpires’ reports of suspect action from left-arm spinner Moinul Islam, Abahani off-spinner Amit Kumar, left-arm spinner Rejaul Karim, Mohammad Saifuddin, off-spinner Asif Ahmed, left-arm spinners Naeem Islam Jr and Faisal Hossain and off-spinner Mustafizur Rahman during this year’s DPL.

Omar Khaled Rumi, Golam Faruk Suru and Dipu Roy Chowdhury are the other members of the remedial committee which is headed by Jalal Yunus.

Earlier Nizam Uddin Chowdhury, CEO of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had stated, “Currently, the umpires detected the bowlers by the naked eyes (bare eyes) for the suspected bowling action. Thereafter, they’re giving warning the team management to correct their bowler or bowlers’ action before submitting the report to the BCB’s Umpires Committee.

“They will refer to Bowlers Review Committee, who will spot the actual level of the violation of the bowlers with device and will then suggest working as per their intensity.”

The ICC is slated to help the committee with technological assistance and experienced personnel from the Cardiff Metropolitan University , one of ICC’s accredited testing centres, will be brought in to help with the process as the BCB does not have any concrete plans to build its own testing centre as of now.

“We are not experienced at reviewing a bowling action, so we will bring an outside expert. We will need a dedicated space because this process also requires technological assistance. We have a long gap now and we are now well-equipped to tackle this issue.

“Building a lab within ICC’s protocol is going to be very expensive. We want to start with minimum costs. We have written to the ICC for technical assistance. We are also hoping to bring experts from Cardiff on a temporary basis”, Chowdhury added.

However the board clarified that Arafat Sunny and Taskin Ahmed’s bowling actions were not within the committee’s jurisdiction but their videotaped actions will be reviewed by Bangladesh coaching staff and a decision will be made before their ban is revoked and they are allowed to play international matches. As of now, the tainted duo can only play in domestic matches.

Hopefully, Bangladesh can sort out the mess they are in and come up with solutions not only to improve domestic cricket but also to engage curatively with problems of illegal bowling action that continue to plague the game. The national team also needs to take urgent decisions and try and build a stable team before their October assignment against England.